LONDON (Reuters) - British shoppers have become more cost-conscious and have slashed spending on their homes as the housing market continues to deteriorate, updates from three of Britain's biggest retailers showed yesterday.

Downbeat comments from John Lewis Partnership and Home Retail Group contrasted with a strong performance from budget-focused supermarket group Wm Morrison Supermarkets Plc.

John Stevenson, analyst at Shore Capital, said the pressures on British consumers — higher fuel, food, and mortgage costs — are greater now than four months ago and people returning from their summer holidays will tighten their belts further.

"You've now got three pay packets until Christmas and I think people will rein in heavily in the autumn," he said.

Employee-owned John Lewis, seen as a bellwether for Britain's retail industry, posted a 27-percent drop in first-half profit and said it was cautious about the outlook for the rest of this year and 2009.

The group, which runs 27 department stores and 192 Waitrose supermarkets, said it made pretax profit of £108 million ($191 million) in the six months to July 26 on a 3.6 percent rise in sales to £3.27 billion.

Operating profit at the department stores fell 34 percent to £40 million as sales of homewares were hit by the slump in the housing market.

Operating profit at the upmarket Waitrose chain fell 8 percent to £103 million.