John Lewis Partnership will be closing all of their stores from Monday evening in response to the impact of coronavirus.
the closure was confirmed in an announcement on the John Lewis website:
“The welfare of our customers, communities and partners is always our absolute priority.
“While it is with a heavy heart that we temporarily close our John Lewis shops, our partners will, where possible, be taking on important roles in supporting their fellow partners, providing critical services in Waitrose shops and ensuring our customers can get what they need through johnlewis.com, which is seeing extremely strong demand.
“The partnership has traded for over 155 years, during which time we have faced many difficult periods, including two world wars and the 2008 financial crisis.
“On every occasion, thanks to our customers and partners, and the long standing relationships with our suppliers and stakeholders, we have emerged stronger. We all need to continue to support each other and our strength and resilience will be tested. But they will not be broken.”
John Lewis Partners will be redeployed to provide additional support to Waitrose and johnlewis.com for our non-food online business with more than 2,000 staff already redeployed into Waitrose stores to assist with increased demand.
All 338 Waitrose shops in England, Scotland, Wales and the Channel Islands will remain open as will waitrose.com.
