A beastly time for high street

Shop takings battered by winter storms

THE high street suffered its second worst sales on record last month, figures out today confirmed.

The Beast from the East sent takings tumbling more than 10%, as plunging temperatures and snow saw shoppers shun going out.

The only time a single month has seen a more severe dip was in November 2008, when Britain was in the grip of snow and the global financial crisis.

The first week of March saw sales plummet by a record 28%, said industry experts at BDO.

It was also the worst month on record for fashion sales, down 12.7% year on year, and homewares dived 13.2%.

Two snow blasts in March also hit online firms, with the 11% growth in web sales the weakest since December 2015.

Sophie Michael, head of retail at BDO, said: “However you look at it, March was a brutal month for stores.”

The findings cap a bad start to the year for retailers, with rising costs and cut-throat competition leading to tough trading.

Toys R Us and Maplin have fallen into administration, and there have been a string of profit warnings. Meanwhile separate data revealed last month’s output in the service sector – which covers the bulk of the economy and includes retail – grew at its slowest rate since the aftermath of the Brexit vote in 2016.

It mirrored similarly weak figures from the construction industry.

Chris Williamson, chief business economist at report author IHS Markit, said: “The UK economy iced up in March.”

Experts reckon growth in the wider economy slowed to 0.3% in the first three months of this year, down from 0.4% in the final quarter of last year.