by business editor Trevor Sturgess

Sunshine and Easter holidays encouraged shoppers to return to the high street last month, (Apr), according to figures released today. (12)

Like-for-like UK retail sales in April were up 4.6 per cent on a year ago, with total sales rising by 6.3 per cent.

As other figures showed a slight easing in the global downturn, experts were cautiously optimistic while warning that it would be dangerous to read too much into the latest retail figures.

Others warned that the "elephant in the room" was unemployment, with the current figure of just over two million nationwide - 34,192 in Kent and Medway - expected to top three million by the end of this year or early next.

Both food and non-food sales were up, although there was a greater surge in food sales. In non-food, clothing, footwear and outdoor leisure showed the best growth but big-ticket homewares and furniture sales remained difficult. Online, mail-order and telephone sales were 12.5 per cent higher than a year ago.

Stephen Robertson, director general of the British Retail Consortium, said: "The best sales growth for three years is good news but let’s be cautious. A sunny Easter that fell in April this year is the key reason why overall sales are up compared with last year when Easter was in March and miserable.

"Sales of garden goods, outdoor leisure, clothing and food did well but other non-food sectors missed out on the seasonal boost and the total spent on food rose less than food inflation, indicating the amount sold dropped.

"Following a tough winter, there’s some pent-up demand but there’s no reason to think customers suddenly feel flush or eager to spend. With unemployment set to grow through the rest of the year, mounting jobs worries will hold back spending for some time. It would be great if the historically weak performance of the last 12 months was behind us but we shouldn’t celebrate yet."

Helen Dickinson, head of retail at KPMG, said: "Although, on the face it, the results for April show a healthy year-on-year uplift, it would be dangerous to see the figures as a sure sign that consumer confidence has returned just yet." But they did show that consumers were resilient to the gloomy economic outlook and, for the moment at least, were not "making a step change in reducing their spending."

Meanwhile, Bluewater said footfall was up 7.8 per cent on last year during the May Bank holiday weekend. The biggest single increase was on Bank Holiday Monday, when numbers rose by 17.5 per cent. Bluewater also recorded a strong performance in April, with a 7.5 per cent increase.