U.K. Retail Sales, Homebuyer Enquiries Suffer in Winter Freeze

Total sales at stores rose 1.2 percent from a year earlier, the British Retail Consortium said today. The number of real- estate agents saying enquiries from new buyers fell exceeded those seeing gains by 20 percentage points, down from a balance of 18 percentage points seeing increases in December, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors said in a separate report.

Bank of England Governor Mervyn King said last month that data may be volatile as the economy ended its worst recession on record, a sales tax reduction ended and the longest cold snap in 30 years kept customers out of stores. The economy barely grew in the fourth quarter, ahead of an election that Prime Minister Gordon Brown must call by June.

The retail report shows “an awful start to the year and in stark contrast to an upbeat December,” Stephen Robertson, the BRC’s Director General, said in an emailed statement. “Customers are becoming cautious again in the face of economic and political uncertainty. Retailers will be hoping these results are mainly a snow-induced blip.”