Shop tills were playing a merry tune across the UK in March, with retail sales showing their biggest monthly increase since January 2011.

Retail sales volumes rose 1.8% in March, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), with the ONS suggesting that the clement weather boosted sales of spring clothing, footwear and gardening products. March was the warmest Britain has experienced since 1957.

Easter's earlier arrival in 2012 probably also provided a lift, as did panic buying of petrol; fuel sales were 4.9% higher in March than in February, as drivers filled their tanks in anticipation of a strike by fuel tanker drivers.

March's performance represents a rebound from a miserable February, in which sales volumes fell 0.8%. The strength of March's figures caught economists on the hop, as the consensus forecast had been for a much smaller 0.5% gain.

In the first quarter of the year retail sales volumes were up 0.8% year-on-year.


JH

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