Summer casts cloud over high streets

Summer casts cloud over high streets BY TIM REID Links THE clouds of summer gloom over Britain are darkest over the high street, it emerged yesterday. Shopkeepers are counting the cost of lost sales caused by a distinct absence of sunshine. Millions of items of hot-weather clothing, including cotton dresses, short-sleeved shirts, sandals, sunglasses and shorts remain unsold as the fashion chains find - like everyone else - that it was an error to expect warm weather in July. Sales of charcoal, wine and meat, have also slumped - reflecting the lack of barbecuing weather - along with outdoor paint, tanning lotions and garden furniture. The wet spell has been a boon only for cold cures and foreign package holidays. At the British Retail Consortium (BRC), Ann Grain said: "The rain dampens things. If it's sunny we feel more like going out and shopping. If it's dull and raining we feel less eager to leave home." Amanda Aldridge, British head of retail for the accountants KPMG, which collated the figures, said: "The impact of the weather can particularly be seen in women's clothing. The bad weather means people are wearing what they have in their wardrobes. The summer sales have come at the wrong time. If you don't get the right weather at the right time, figures are bad." A survey by the consortium showed a subdued market starting in June, with a terrible effect on the summer sales. According to the BRC, nearly all the high street department stores, including Marks & Spencer, John Lewis, Next and Monsoon, started their summer sales at least a week early and have increased discounts on the summer fashion ranges in an attempt to offset the poor sales. None of the stores would release any details of sales figures or trends last night. All said they were "stock market sensitive". [See Correction] The Federation of Tourist Operators reported a boom in package holidays. Thomas Cook has sold 165,000 in the past three weeks, 20 per cent more than usual. "We are approaching the peak booking levels usually seen in January," said the federation's Graham Lancaster. Weather forecasters were trying to answer the question everyone was asking: Whatever happened to summer? It turns out that our dark clouds do have a silver lining, but it is stuck hundreds of miles away. A low weather system has become trapped over Britain because we are wedged between two high-pressure systems, one in the mid- Atlantic and one over the Balkans which is producing the prolonged heat wave there. That means flooding in Kent and Essex, but raging fires and temperatures of up to 50C (122F) in Greece and Bulgaria. Unusually, the weather systems are almost identical in size, so the jet stream in the upper atmosphere has become a symmetrical series of waves, locking in the bad weather. According to the Meteorological Office, it will take a fortnight to break the wave pattern and shift good weather our way. In the first ten days of July, Britain averaged three hours of sun a day compared with the usual six - and has already had half the average monthly rainful.