Fears that consumers are reining in their spending ahead of Christmas have been fuelled after it emerged that sales volumes failed to rebound last month.

A predicted return to growth did not materialise, with official figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) revealing flat sales volumes between October and November.

It comes after a much worse than expected drop in October when retail sales volumes fell 0.8% month-on-month.

The CBI said on Wednesday that sales for the Christmas season had been "below par" as families try to make their budgets stretch as far as possible.

Excluding fuel, the ONS figures showed the total value of sales was up 2.5% in November compared with a year ago, below inflation of 2.7% in the same period.

The ONS said new models of tablet computers drove a 3.8% boost for household goods stores, but this failed to offset a 0.1% drop in food sales. Clothes and shoes sales were also down by 0.1%, with department stores also seeing sales volumes fall.

But the ONS estimated that the proportion of retail sales online increased by 1.4% between October and November, with the average weekly spend in November at £711 million.

Across all retailing an estimated £7.3 billion was spent weekly in November, around the same as last year.

James Knightley, analyst at ING Bank, said the headline growth figure was a disappointing outcome following a decent bounce in consumer confidence in November. He expects overall GDP to be flat in the fourth quarter.

British Retail Consortium director-general Helen Dickinson, said the figures suggested that Christmas shoppers were slow out of the blocks as pressures on budgets and the outlook left people reluctant to commit to spending early but she said there were signs that shopper numbers had been building at a respectable pace throughout December, especially in recent weeks.

The Press Association, photo by beejois