John Lewis has received conditional planning permission to convert up to half of the space in its flagship Oxford Street store in London into office space.
The Westminster City Council’s planning sub-committee unanimously approved the department store chain’s proposal. John Lewis is now free to convert around 45% of the shop floor space (or up to 28,315 sq. m.) to offices.
The proposal is aimed at helping the chain reduce costs as it struggles with the impact of the pandemic – it reported a £635m pre-tax loss for the six months to July 2020, on the back of a £470m write-down on its stores. John Lewis has said it wants to save £300m annually by 2022.
