Capital's High Streets get a boost

THE sunshine brought Londoners on to the High Street in droves in April, helping the capital buck the national trend of a retail meltdown.

With spring fashions flying off the shelves as warm weather finally arrived, like-for-like sales in London were 3% higher than a year earlier, according to the London Retail Consortium (LRC).

That was in stark contrast to the 4.7% collapse suffered by stores across Britain - the biggest annual downturn for a decade.

The LRC put the gulf between London's performance and the rest of the country down to three things. It said London's weather was better, particularly at the weekends. Second, the capital benefited from an influx of high spending tourists from Russia and the Middle East. And third, many London stores extended Easter promotional offers.

But it added that the underlying picture remained subdued. Despite April's improvement, the average monthly gain so far this year is only 0.7% compared with 4.8% for the same months last year as households struggle with higher mortgage costs and record credit card debt.

LRC director Kevin Hawkins said: 'While many retailers in London will breathe a sigh of relief at these figures, the average monthly gain this year is still far below that of 2004. Big ticket items are still suffering and the weak dollar continues to deter American tourists.'

Helen Dickinson, head of retail at KPMG, said of the difference between the London and UK performances: 'It highlights the vulnerability of trading in central London to small changes in customer sentiment, and shows what a bit of warm weather can do to encourage shoppers.'

The report revealed that sales were mixed across stores and sectors, but in general smaller purchases were favoured over big ticket items.

Latest figures from department stores group John Lewis suggest London continued to outstrip the rest of the country at the start of May. Its Oxford Street, Peter Jones and Bluewater stores were the star performers on Bank Holiday Monday.

? Fashion chain Hobbs today unveiled a 30% jump in sales and said it was seeing 'signs of improvement' in High Street conditions which should feed through in the autumn. Pre-tax profits rose 38% to £11.7m in the year to 29 January. Sales were up a third at £67m.