The imaginary worlds of Sim City, Second Life and other digital utopias are about to be joined by a very different online experience – shopping in London’s West End.

An ambitious new scheme to duplicate online the real-life experience of a shopping expedition in central London is promising to transform the way Britain’s leading retailers do business.

Stung by the growing popularity of internet shopping – online sales in November were up 16% on last year – the body representing West End traders is creating a unique internet world where shoppers will be able to wander down computer simulations of London streets, click their way into exact replicas of well-known stores, and thumb through goods stacked on virtual shelves.

The aim is to combine the speed and efficiency of internet shopping with the sense of exploration and discovery that real high-street browsing entails. By turning the London shopping experience into an elaborate online haven filled with spectacular graphics and clever animations, more than 600 West End traders from Bond Street, Oxford Street and Regent Street could sell more goods online, and lure more shoppers away from their keyboards for a taste of real shopping.

The £8m scheme is the brain-child of Alex Wrottesley, a budding media entrepreneur whose Near software company has joined forces with broadband , to provider Be, a subsidiary of O2 create an interactive computer model of the main shopping streets in central London.

“This is the first time that someone has tried to recreate a city just as you’d find it in real life,” Wrottesley said last week. His company used laser measuring devices mounted on the roofs of vans to draw up 3-D maps of the streets in the project. Employing the sort of imagery used by Hollywood special effects designers, Wrottesley created a highly realistic 3-D computer model to be known as Near London. It is due to open for business online by October 2009.

The model will allow mouse-wielding users of Near London software to click their way down mostly traffic-free streets, and to enter any shop they choose. There will be no beggars, pickpockets or graffiti soiling the pristine online landscape. Only an occasional Routemaster bus will disrupt the smooth flow of pedestrian traffic.

The projects’ designers also intend to change the weather according to live Met Office data – if it’s raining on Oxford Street there will be simulated rain online – and newspaper billboards will show up-to-date headlines.

Virtual shoppers may also contact friends through social networks such as Facebook and MySpace, then head off on joint shopping expeditions using instant messaging to discuss their finds.

Any real-life shop-owners on a street included in the project can open their virtual doors to passers-by for a “rent” of £40 a month. They can then use the doors as portals to their own websites, or use Near’s designers to replicate their shop interiors in the style of the rest of the project.

“Most people see virtual reality worlds like Second Life as a bit geeky and pointless, but this is completely different,” said Jace Tyrrell, marketing manager of the New West End Company, a trade body that appears to have concluded: if you can’t bring the shoppers to Oxford Street, you need to bring Oxford Street to the shoppers.

Among retailers that have already expressed interest in a parallel London life are the fashion brands DKNY and Armani Exchange. Capital Radio, whose headquarters are on Leicester Square, may also join in.

The project’s designers hope that local museums, theatres and cinemas will sell tickets on the site.

“I think if retailers took the opportunity to design their shops in an engaging way, it could be successful,” said Trinny Woodall, the fashion adviser and television presenter. Katherine Jenkins, the mezzo-soprano, who yesterday opened the Harrods sale, said: “It could make internet shopping a lot more enjoyable. Virtual reality is seen as a bit geeky, but if they did it well I’m sure it would become popular with women.”

The danger, of course, is that shoppers will find the online London so much cleaner and more appealing than the real thing, that they will stop going to Oxford Street altogether, putting Britain’s best known high street out of business.

That thought has already occurred to Sir Philip Green, the billionaire retailer whose empire includes Topshop and Bhs. “It may work for people abroad,” he said. “But from a London perspective, where we employ thousands of staff, it doesn’t sound like it’s going to bring any more people to my stores where I’m paying rent.” Woodall said she doubted that a virtual London, however popular, could replace the traditional shopping experience.

“People will always want to try something on,” she said. Yet she acknowledged that online shopping had its advantages, especially in a recession – no parking tickets, no congestion charge, no hassle.

“That said,” Woodall added, “it’s very important to get people into the West End. I hope this system doesn’t dilute the vitality of the high street.”

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