A LOCALLY-owned retail fashion group has bucked the trend of high street gloom and doom and reported improved sales in December as compared to 12 months earlier.

Overall retail sales in Jersey fell by five per cent last month when compared to the Christmas and New Year period for the year of 2010 but Collections Group CI saw a rise of four per cent.

Richard Clews, the managing director of the Collections Group, said that it was ‘surprising that overall Jersey figures have hit an all-time low’ as the British Retail Consortium were reporting that UK sales figures were up by 4.1 per cent.

He said that the BRC reported that outlets opened for more than a year had only reported a rise of 2.2 per cent.