John Lewis MD’s aim to open flagship store in city

Mr Street was speaking at the Leeds Chamber Business Lunch, which took place at The Queens hotel yesterday. In an interview with the Yorkshire Post, he said: “We are determined to open a regional flagship shop in the centre of Leeds. We know that it’s the regional capital and we know it’s the biggest gap in our coverage of the UK.”

He added: “We are pleased that there has been the recent planning application and approval for the Eastgate Quarter, but there is no definite deal struck yet.”

But he said he is “confident” a deal will be struck between John Lewis, Hammerson and Leeds City Council, and if it is, the target opening date for the John Lewis store is around 2015/2016. Meanwhile, he said the aim is for a new John Lewis store to open on the outskirts of York, as part of an expansion of the existing Monks Cross retail park, in the autumn of 2013.

Mr Street said: “We have been looking at Leeds for probably 30 years. What is frustrating for us is that it has taken this long. That is nobody’s fault. We were close to an arrangement in 2007 and then obviously the recession came and so the viability of the scheme that was then proposed fell away.”

Mr Street said John Lewis’ partnership model had “never been in better health”. All the company’s permanent staff are partners, who own the business, and take an annual share in its profits as a proportion of their pay. Mr Street said over the last three years the model has been proven to be “an alternative model to the traditional model”.

He said: “People have seen that our business can concentrate on the long term because we are not beholden to City shareholders, in delivering short-term return. For example, that means we can do the right thing for our customers during these tough times,

“We have held our course in terms of the products we are offering, the service we are offering and the price we are offering.”

He said the eurozone crisis is affecting the consumer confidence indices, which are “very weak”, rather than actual spending at the moment, with consumers’ confidence being affected as far as a commitment to big purchases for the future is concerned.