The crisis in Britain 's high street will intensify this week with figures showing that retail sales fell again in August. The monthly figures from the BRC and KPMG sales monitor are expected to show like for like sales in negative territory with a decline of 1 per cent in August compared with a year ago.

The decline is not expected to be any worse than last months which fell by 1.9 per cent. The John Lewis Partnership reported a 0.6 per cent rise in sales for the final week of August. It saw an overall drop of 0.4 per cent for the month with furniture, toys and textiles being the weakest performers.