Laura Ashley has swung to a loss as a continued decline in its home furnishings business and changes to its website weighed on sales.

The high street stalwart revealed it made a pre-tax loss of £14.3 million in the year to June 30, compared to a profit of £100,000 this time last year.

Excluding exceptional items, the loss before tax came in at £9.8 million versus last year's £5.6 million profit.

Total group sales were down 9.6% to £232.5 million, with like-for-like retail sales falling 3.5%.

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Andrew Khoo, the brand's chairman, said: "The last 12 months have proved to be a difficult trading period for the group and indeed for the retail sector as a whole.

"The primary causes for the year-on-year drop in profit have been the performance of Home Furnishing and that of our website following a re-platforming exercise which took place in November 2018."

Within the home category, furniture and decorating were hit especially hard with like-for-like sales down by 9% and 13.7% respectively.

Home accessories, which accounts for the biggest slice of UK sales, rose by 1.1% on a comparable basis.

Comparable fashion sales were up 9.2%.

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Meanwhile, the relaunch of the website led to online sales falling 14.2%.

Elsewhere the group is growing its hospitality business, with nine licensed Laura Ashley tea rooms and two hotels now in operation.

The company said it had made "good progress" on expanding the project internationally.

Strike action will go ahead as planned today after Ryanair lost its High Court bid to force its pilots to take to the skies.

A judge sitting in London on Wednesday rejected an urgent application by the airline for an injunction against the British Airline Pilots' Association (Balpa).

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Following the court victory, Balpa said it had offered to reopen talks with Ryanair in a last ditch attempt to avoid industrial action.

But the union said the airline had "rejected the offer out of hand" and that the strikes will go ahead as planned between 00.01am on Thursday until one minute before midnight on Friday.

Brian Strutton, Balpa general secretary, said: "We are extremely disappointed that Ryanair have taken such a belligerent and negative stance.

"We have become used to their macho posturing, but sadly it is their passengers who will pay the price for Ryanair's attitude."

A second round of strikes is planned between September 2-4.

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A few hours before the judgment in London, Ryanair won a similar legal move at the High Court in Dublin, meaning flights departing from Irish airports will operate as normal.

The airline urged the Forsa union, and what it described as "this small minority of very well paid Irish pilots" to resume mediation.

Ocado has said a fire which broke out at its south-east London facility on Wednesday night caused disruption to some of its food deliveries.

The online grocer said a "small fire" was reported just outside the building in Erith, in a container for waste packaging.

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Affected shoppers will be offered the chance to re-book for Friday.

It is the second fire reported at an Ocado facility this year. In February the group's warehouse in Andover, Hampshire, was destroyed in a blaze.

Ocado said on Thursday that no part of its material handling equipment was involved in the fire.

Concerns were raised earlier this year about the cause of the Andover fire, but Ocado insisted it did not pose a threat to the group's business model.

The cause of that fire was eventually determined to be an electrical fault at one of the first-generation battery-charging units at the edge of an ambient storage grid.

The battery-charging units in question were only used at the Andover site and not at Ocado's other fulfilment centres.

Shares in the company were trading as much as 3% lower on Thursday morning.