John Lewis stores scrapped with almost 1,500 jobs at risk

The John Lewis Partnership has revealed plans to close a further eight stores, including the "At Home" store in Chester, leaving 1,465 jobs under threat.

The company, which includes the Waitrose supermarket brand, had warned earlier this month while revealing annual losses of £517m that it did not expect to reopen all its John Lewis sites when COVID-19 restrictions are due to end in April.

It axed around 1,000 jobs last year through eight other store closures as partnership chair, Dame Sharon White, moved to cut costs and prepare the chain for a post-pandemic future amid a big shift to online sales through the enforced closure of retail deemed "non-essential".

The latest cutbacks, which followed extensive talks with landlords, leaves just 34 John Lewis stores.

Those to stay closed are four "At Home" sites in Ashford, Basingstoke, Chester and Tunbridge Wells, and four department stores in Aberdeen, Peterborough, Sheffield and York.

John Lewis said it hoped to redeploy some of the partners affected and offset some of the lost store business through a bolstered online proposition and an expanded click and collect service.

The latter measure would include its Waitrose operation and trials of in-store "John Lewis shopping areas" within its supermarkets.