With a 52% majority and over one million votes up, Britain has voted to leave the European Union.
In a 72% turnout, 17.4m voted for Brexit, while 16.1m opted for a remain vote. DIY Week spoke to bira chief executive officer Alan Hawkins on the morning of results day: "Bira has debated the EU referendum at length and the results have always been fairly evenly split among our members, so the results do not come as a huge surprise.

"I'm a bit worried as to the impact this result will have on the high street in the short term. The high street is in a fragile state at the moment, with figures only just returning to positive results in the last quarter and there is a feeling that many people will now sit on their wallets as a result of the vote.

The results are consistent with recent polls on DIYWeek.net, with 36% saying they would vote to leave the EU. 31% opted to stay in, while 18% admitted they hadn't yet decided, and the remaining 16% saying they would not be voting.

The value of the pound has plummeted 11% to its lowest level in three decades in the wake of the vote, reaching levels last seen in the Thatcher/Reagan era. Retail experts have said that retail prices are expected to rise as the value of the pound declines and imports become relatively more expensive.

A spokesperson for the British Retail Consortium said: "To keep prices down and to deliver the best possible choice for consumers, retailers' top priority will be to ensure the continued ease and minimum additional costs of importing EU goods into the UK for sale to customers."

For more on this, see the June 24 issue of DIY Week.