Sales on the high street remained weak in September but bounced back from a dismal August, the CBI employers’ organisation said on Wednesday, beating retailers’ expectations that the start of autumn would be as bad as the late summer.

In its monthly distributive trades survey, the CBI said 21 per cent of retailers reported that sales volumes in September were higher than they were a year earlier, while 48 per cent said sales were down and 31 per cent reported unchanged sales.