Shiver runs down high street as consumer spending slides

  [caption id="attachment_881737" align="alignnone" width="300"] Photo by REX/Shutterstock[/caption] Consumer spending has fallen by the largest amount in almost six years as Britons feel the pressure on their finances, figures from Visa show. Uncertainty surrounding Brexit, wage stagnation and creeping inflation are weighing on consumer confidence, which has contributed to the largest quarterly fall in spending — of 1.4% — since the final quarter of 2012, according to Visa’s consumer spending index. Clothing, leisure activities and transport were particularly affected. Consumer spending fell in all three months of the first quarter, with the rate of decline steepening from 1% year-on-year in February to 2.1% in March as the Beast from the East brought snow and bitterly cold weather to Britain, keeping people off the high street. Separate figures from the British Retail Consortium and Springboard reveal that visits to the high street fell by 6% in March, the largest decline since the end of 2010. The Visa and BRC figures provide further evidence that poor weather and fragile consumer confidence weighed on the British economy in the first three months of the year. Click here for the full Times article (£) Click here for the full Guardian article