John Lewis undersold my city

I found [chairman of John Lewis Partnership] Sharon White’s, comments quoted in The Mail on Sunday last week about ‘common sense capitalism’ ironic.

She said that the most successful companies create jobs and wealth while giving back to society, which I partly agree with.

But at the end of last year, after signing a 20-year lease with Sheffield City Council to keep its flagship department store open in the city centre, John Lewis Partnership pulled the plug at the eleventh hour and closed the branch.

Where was common sense capitalism then? Ms White missed all of Sheffield’s trade in the run-up to Christmas as customers were told to go to their nearest John Lewis store in either Manchester or Leeds, which also did nothing for carbon footprints or social and environmental progress.

Most CEOs, past and present, seem to sack who they can, make redundant who they can and shut down what they can before moving on somewhere else.

It’s time to think outside of the box on how we can attract customers back to our city-centre stores after the pandemic.