High street sales fall for fifth week out of six

Retail sales on the high street fell for the fifth week out of six, a survey from BDO showed on Friday, showing the sharp slip from boom to decline in the sector over the course of a year due to the squeeze on households incomes.

Total like-for-like sales were down 4.29% this week, the BDO high street sales tracker found, though it was against a solid week of growth for the same week last year.

The previous week sales had just edged into positive territory, rising 0.4% versus a positive week the year before.

But for the four weeks prior to that sales had all been down year on year: falling 5.1% in the week to 3 November, after dropping 6.6%, 5.9% and 3.4% since the high street last recorded a positive weekly gain.

BDO said any early discounting attempted by stores in the week to 17 November had "little effect" on total sales, despite cooler weather persisting "consumers continued to shun purchases of fashion items" - on the high street at least.

On Thursday official UK retail sales figures showed volumes in October fell 0.3% year-on-year, which was against what was a strong month last year but the lowest rate of annual growth since March 2013 and down from the 1.3% rise this September.

Month-on-month, the Office for National Statistics showed sales volumes rebounded 0.3% after a sharp fall the previous month of 0.7%.