May brought non-food retailers their busiest week of the year so far in terms of shopper numbers - and DIY, homewares and garden were the biggest winners of all.
Latest figures from Ipsos Retail Performance show that the late spring Bank Holiday in the last seven days of the month helped the week beat the previous high of Easter week by 3.2%.

And of all the consumer categories DIY, homewares and garden centres were the biggest beneficiaries, with footfall up by 9.5% over the extended weekend.

Retail traffic was up 2.8% when compared to May 2014, with average weekly traffic increasing 1.1% month-on-month.

"The late spring holiday weekend was a real high point of the year for retailers in the home and garden sector," commented Ipsos director of retail intelligence Dr Tim Denison.

"The month as a whole produced stable growth on last year's footfall in each week of the month, indicating a real momentum building in the return of shoppers to high street stores."

Growth was particularly strong in northern England, where footfall levels across the month were 8.8% higher than last year, peaking with double-digit growth over the Bank Holiday weekend.

Dr Denison said the result of May's General Election meant that recent economic policy would continue, and that retail footfall was therefore expected to keep building.

"These stable and growing footfall figures certainly support the optimism expressed by retailers in the latest CBI survey, in which sales expectations for the next month are at their highest level for 27 years," he added.

"It all bodes well for some busy summer months ahead for the trade."