New Year gloom for high street

The average weekly value of sales in January was£4.4 billion, the same as it was in January last year. This represents the lowest annual growth for the month since records began, the Office for National Statistics said today in its latest retail report.

The underlying rate of retail sales growth slowed in January compared with the end of last year.

The volume of retail sales in the three months from November 2005 to January 2006 was 1.3 per cent up on the previous three months. This follows growth of 1.6 per cent in the three months to December and compares with a decrease of 0.6 per for the same period in 2005.

Three-monthly growth in sales volume was 1 per cent for food stores and

1.3 per cent for non-food stores. Household goods stores showed growth of 3.2 per cent, with non-store retailing highest at 3.6 per cent. This was the highest three-monthly growth for the non-store sector since July 2004 and reflects continued strong growth by specialist online retailers.