August retailing has so far seen sales drop 1.5% from last month, according to ONS figures. In July, sales increased 3.9% from June.

“After the Euro 2020-related increase in June, retail sales fell in July to their lowest level since stores reopened in April, but still remain well above pre-pandemic levels.” said Jonathan Athow, deputy national statistician for economic statistics at the ONS.

Sales at clothing stores and housewares stores fell, while department stores edged down 0.2%. Sarah Coles, personal finance analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, told the BBC that July was a “sales cleanup”.

“As the rain fell we didn’t see the point in having a new wardrobe, especially with so many people vacationing in the UK this year, so clothing sales were not boosted by last minute swimwear shopping. “

According to Tremplin data.

The impact of the drop in activity last week caused the deviation from the 2019 attendance level to widen again to -20.6%, with the biggest impact being on main streets where the The 2019 gap fell to -26.3% from -21.7% last time. the week. The glimmer of good news is that overall ridership is 15.1% higher than in the same week last year, and 20.8% on main streets.

Diane Wehrle, Insights Director at Springboard, commented: “The penultimate week of the summer school vacation period was kind of a wet firecracker. Rain almost every day in all parts of the UK, accompanied by cool temperatures, has resulted in lower footfall to UK retail destinations from the previous week, wiping out any increase in the previous week. As is generally the case when it rains, the shopping streets fared less well than the indoor environments of shopping malls, shopping parks and retail parks that are easily accessible by car and have parking at the door. close to shops.