The cold weather and the lateness of Easter are being blamed for retailers' worst start to the year in over a decade.

The grim news comes from the British Retail Consortium, which says its latest Retail Sales Monitor shows a 1.4% drop in sales for March compared to a year ago, while overall, there was a tiny 0.3% sales growth for the first three months of this year.

The analysts are blaming the cold weather for putting people off buying spring clothes, while higher energy prices, taxes and household debt all played their parts.

Helen Dickinson, head of retail at KPMG says:

"At first sight these figures are disappointing with negative like-for-like sales being seen for the first time in 2006. However, they are heavily distorted by the impact of Easter which fell in March last year. Not only has this affected underlying sales trends but it has also influenced the timing of mid-season promotions. A truer picture of retail sales will be seen once we can assess March and April’s figures together�.