Member Article

North East consumers spend in summer

Consumer spending across the North East grew 4.2% in August, as the UK experienced the best spending summer since 2006.

Data from Barclaycard’s monthly analysis of UK spending showed instore spending grew 3.3% compared to August last year and online spending grew 9.9%.

The leisure and entertainment sectors saw particularly strong growth as restaurant spending grew 13.3% on last August while cinema and theatre spending grew 8.1%.

Spending fell on clothing (-0.6%) and groceries (-0.1%), as did electronics (-1.4%) and department store (-0.8%) purchases, as households shifted their spending to holidaying and treating the family.

Airline spend growth also slowed dramatically, increasing by just 2.3% year on year compared to double figure growth in February, April, May and July, suggesting that the good weather saw families resisting the urge to book holidays to the sun.

Kath Myers, Network Retail director for Barclays, North East, said: “Rising consumer confidence pushed North East spending growth 4.2% in August as households continued to shake off the economic downturn. It’s a trend we’ve seen for most of this year and has helped establish 2013 as the year of recovery.

“The weather has undoubtedly helped. It was confirmed last week that we’ve enjoyed one of the warmest summers on record and the consumer response has been to hit the high street, with in-store spend growing in August by a robust 3.3% versus last year – the 2nd highest level this year. Spending on eating out, holidaying in the UK, and doing up the house grew particularly strongly in August.

“When set alongside the other economic news we’ve seen recently, and with forecasters predicting an above average September weather-wise, we expect this month to be another positive one and for UK PLC to end the third quarter on a high.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .