I’m bitterly disappointed about the closure of Watford's John Lewis. I’ve been using Trewins and John Lewis since the 1970s.

Has anyone commented on the uniqueness of the Watford store?

My wife can’t walk all that far these days and the Watford John Lewis is or was pretty unique in being able to walk into the store directly from the carpark, and then access every department within 5m to 10m of the central core escalators and lifts.

I can’t think of any other store with the same combination.

The High Wycombe store may be larger but it’s spread out laterally on just two floors. So if you want to go from, say, the white goods department to the nursery department you’ve got to walk about 100m! Watford has five or six floors.

I think the problem with John Lewis has been that many of its departments stock stuff that is too pricey for day-to-day shopping/shoppers.

It’s very good on electrical, lighting, bedding, towels etc, but the clothing departments stock mainly expensive brand names. I’d be interested to know which departments in the Watford store have been paying their way and which ones have been losing.

The food at The Place To Eat is not nearly as good as it used to be several years ago. I often struggle to find anything that I fancy and they won’t do one-off changes anymore (eg leaving the pickle out of a ham and cheese baguette!). And the loss of the John Lewis courtyard cafe was a bad move. The juice bar that replaced it was never busy.

Many of the products that John Lewis sells are not conducive to an exclusively online sale. You need to sit on a sofa or chair to test it out. You need to feel how solidly built a fridge or cooker are. You could see new products on display, rather than searching online for what you already know of.

Peter Taff

by email