People close to retirement have been advised to put it off following today’s cut in interest rate to a 300-year low of one per cent.

Nicholas O’Shea, a director with Pharon Independent Financial Advisers in Harbledown, near Canterbury, said the rate cut would do nothing to help the economy but was bad for savers and pensioners.

"People with pension funds are going to find it much harder to produce the income they need because annuity rates will be decreased," he said.

People approaching retirement should "consider whether they should be retiring at the moment," "And if they are retiring, are there alternative means and methods to support their living in the short term?" Mr O’Shea said they should look at part-time work or consultancy.

Savers would have to move "out of their comfort zone" and take more risks with their investments.

Savers should look at using capital to live on for the time being and wait for interest rates to rise in due course.

Some experts have called for zero rates but Mr O’Shea said there should be no more cuts. " I don’t think that falling interest rates are going to help anybody. I hope it’s the last cut."

Quite the opposite in fact. "Interest rates need to stabilies and possibly rise but they won’t rise in the short term."