Between May and June, total retail sales volumes suffered their largest fall since national records began in 1986, with inflation, house-price frailty and looming recession all conspiring to put the dampers on consumers’ spending.

Latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that, month on month, non-food stores suffered the most, with sales falling by 4.5 per cent, followed by stores predominantly focused on food, where volumes dwindled by 3.6 per cent.

Extending the period of examination from one month to three months, high street sales volumes from April to June actually rose by 0.6 per cent compared with the previous three months and were up 4.4 per cent on the same period a year ago. However, this performance represented a slowing on the 1.6 per cent growth seen in the three months to May.

The British Retail Consortium added its tuppence worth, blaming the changeable weather for helping make this season the ‘worst since summer 2005’. Like-for-like sales have been lower than 2007 in three of the past four months and in June sales values fell 0.4 per cent compared with June 2007.