Olympics fail to rescue the high street

The high street failed to receive a boost during the Olympics, with optimism among retailers also seeing its biggest slide for more than three years, the CBI said yesterday.

The business organisation’s latest monthly retail survey found that 31 per cent of retailers suffered lower sales volumes than a year ago over the first two weeks of August while 27 per cent said they were higher.

The resulting balance of 3 per cent that reported lower sales was worse than expectations and dealt a blow to hopes that a feel-good factor from the Games would help lift some of the gloom over the sector.

Although many retailers remained hopeful of a sales bounce in September, a balance of 17 per cent expect the business situation to deteriorate over the next three months as sentiment weakened at its fastest rate since February 2009.

Judith McKenna, chairwoman of the CBI distributive trades panel and Asda chief operating officer, pointed out that although retailers expect the trading environment to worsen in the coming three months, they still expect sales to rise year-on-year in September.