February 12, 2008 | posted by Michael Baxter in High Steet |

And while our economic hope falls under a shadow, good news pipes up over the din of dismay. Yesterday, the British Retail Consortium revealed its latest set of results for the High Street – and sales shot up in January.

Retail sales were up 2.6 per cent on a like-for-like basis in January on the same month in 2007, or so says the British Retail Consortium (BRC) This was a sharp improvement on December, when sales growth was just 0.3 per cent. The three-month trend rate of growth rose to 1.5 per cent, from 0.8 per cent in December for like-for-like sales, and to 3.7 per cent from 2.8 per cent for total sales, reflecting the continuing growth of retail space.

Apparently it was a good month for food sales.

It wasn’t all good, though, because clothing sales were down on a year ago for the fourth month in a row, and this was despite aggressive discounting. Homewares and furniture showed a modest improvement but “remained difficult,” or so said BRC and it added, “while health and beauty picked up but did not regain last summer’s strength.”

There’s no prizes for guessing what the BRC wants to see. It wants to see cuts in the rate of interest. Stephen Robertson, Director General, British Retail Consortium was interviewed on the Today programme this morning, and he continued to bang the “cut interest rates drum”.

The BRC differs from other industry pressure groups in that it likes to tell bad news. Paint an unpleasant gloss, or make the High Street sound like a place of torture for its business, and then maybe the Bank of England will lower rates. And so it was yesterday.

Helen Dickinson, Head of Retail, KPMG, who co-produced the data with BRC, said, “While the ‘doom-mongers’ may be temporarily silenced by this month’s results, it’s certainly too early to draw any conclusions about how the rest of the year will pan out. The growth of 4.9 per cent in total and 2.6 per cent in like-for-like sales was heavily skewed by a strong performance in week one, as January sales absorbed demand carried over from a poor December, which then deteriorated as the month progressed. Another strong performance from food shows retailers are reluctantly passing on some price inflation to the consumer, whereas clothing, particularly women’s, continues to underperform.”