Travis Perkins, the builders merchant and owner of the Wickes chain, has put a virtual freeze on hiring and halved its spend on store expansion as a decline in trading gathers pace in its DIY stores.

Wickes' same store sales per trading day for its first 17 weeks trading to April 26 were down 3 per cent on the same period last year. Like-for-like daily turnover over the past eight weeks has worsened, down 4.9 per cent.

Like-for-like trading in Travis Perkins and its other builders merchants chains was up 3 per cent for the whole of the first four months to the end of April, ahead of the estimated market growth. Sales have fallen back lately however, leaving like-for-like trading flat across March and April combined.

In a trading update ahead of today's annual general meeting Tim Stevenson, chairman of Travis Perkins, said: "In view of the difficult market outlook our group headcount will continue at a level of around 800 or 5 per cent below our originally planned level throughout the year."

The company will not in general be replacing staff who leave the business, a company spokesman said, but there are no plans for redundancies. Each year a business like Travis Perkins loses staff through so-called natural wastage.

The group has also been one of the most expansive firms in the builders merchanting and DIY industry over the past two years. Mr Stevenson said its rate of store openings or acquisitions will be half as fast as how it started the year. Prices of potential target businesses and land generally still have some way to fall to catch up with the prevailing gloom in consumer confidence, Mr Stevenson said.

The group has since the end of 2007 added a net 26 new branches to its builders merchanting network which includes the Travis Perkins, Keyline, City Plumbing Supplies and CCF chains, and eight new Wickes stores.

Mr Stevenson said: "Our recent experience shows that acquisition prices have not yet fallen sufficiently to reflect prevailing circumstances and we have therefore withdrawn from a number of acquisition possibilities. As a result, and without a significant upturn in market conditions, it is likeley that our current rate of capital expenditure and acquisition spend will halve for the remainder of the year."

Total group turnover for the first four months to the end of April was up 6.8 per cent compared to the same period last year.

Travis Perkins announced today that it has refinanced its £900 million five year borrowing facility taken out in 2004 for the purchase of Wickes and which was due for repayment in December. In its place is a £1 billion five year facility which runs from April 2008.

Travis Perkins shares fell 10p to 1017p.

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