Comment - It's time to think the unthinkable about John Lewis in Sheffield

No matter how much we want this much-loved store to remain part of the city centre’s retail offer, we have to accept it could close.

This terrible pandemic isn’t done with us yet.

John Lewis has announced a £517m loss and said it does not expect all of its 42 shops to reopen at the end of lockdown.

And sadly Sheffield is not exempt.

It’d be great to think we were a special case after the council paid £3.4m to keep it here - and then offered further untold amounts for a ‘comprehensive refurbishment’ of its Barker’s Pool store.

They were just the latest attempts to secure the company for Sheffield dating back to the Sevenstone development in 2001.

The trouble is the gestures have been getting ever more expensive - and what have we had in return?

Yesterday, John Lewis did not rule out closing Sheffield, effectively proving the absence of any agreement promising not to close.

For despite its employee-ownership, fair dealing and the warmth of its customer service, John Lewis is a business and if a business doesn’t make a profit it is finished.

Coun Mazher Iqbal, cabinet member for business and investment, knows the score.

He said: “It is not appropriate for us to speak on behalf of John Lewis, whose priority will be communicating their national plans with their staff.”

Tragic though it would be - not least the job losses - we have to prepare for it to go.

If it makes it any easier, the new owners of The Moor said on day one that Debenhams will not be a department store again after it closes for good later this year, killed by Covid and the internet.

Perhaps the concept of department stores is finished - although Atkinsons, also on The Moor, would probably have something to say about that.

People used to say that John Lewis was vital because it attracted shoppers who would otherwise go to the posh shops in Manchester or Leeds. But after year of coronavirus restrictions and lockdowns that sounds like something from another time. And it may or may not come back.

Everything is changing. And Sheffield - thanks to the £480m Heart of the City scheme, a newly revamped The Moor and £16m funding for Fargate - has many more strings to its bow.