High Street gloom as sales flop

BRITAIN'S retailers suffered yet another poor weekend of sales, bringing the prospect of their worst Christmas in years ever nearer.

Monitoring agency FootFall found the number of people in shopping centres down 6% on the last weekend before Christmas a year ago. That followed a week when numbers were down 2.2% on the year.

Many stores have slashed prices on toys, drink, CDs and clothes to lure consumers. Investec added to the gloom as it cut its expectations for the sector.

Amanda Aldridge, head of retail at KPMG, said: 'Retailers are still hoping for a spending bonanza over the next few days. We think it will turn out to be a reasonably good Christmas, but not excellent. And it could still be disappointing for some.'

Figures from the London Retail Consortium and KPMG confirmed that November had been a gloomy start to the festive season. Like-for-like retail sales in the capital were 0.1% lower than a year ago.

The findings, in a new monthly snapshot, were much weaker than those for Britain as a whole. The parent survey from the British Retail Consortium out earlier this month showed a like-for-like rise of 0.9%, itself the weakest November since 1988. Official figures last week showed sales edged up 0.1% in November.

LRC chairman Peter Williams said November had been 'very slow and disappointing' but spending picked up towards the end of the month.

'While reflecting the national trend towards later seasonal shopping, London was also affected by some very specific factors. One of the wettest weekends over the last 100 years and the rugby World Cup played a role, as did speculation concerning President Bush's visit, in deterring some visitors.'

More than one-and-a-half times the average amount of rain for November fell in just two days of continuous downpours in the penultimate weekend, causing road closures and rail disruption. The impact of that was compounded by millions choosing to celebrate England's rugby victory rather than hitting the shops.

Economists say a disappointing Christmas would ease pressure on the Bank of England to push interest rates up aggressively in the New Year.