The John Lewis branch in Brent Cross will still be reopening, while the department store prepares to shut down eight stores.

Department stores in Birmingham and Watford will be shutting, along with four At Home stores in Croydon, Newbury, Swindon and Tamworth, and travel sites in Heathrow and St Pancras.

But the Brent Cross branch is one of nine stores that will reopen on July 30.

The announcement came as the news broke of some stores having to shut, with stores in Aberdeen, Ashford, Brent Cross, Chichester, Oxford, Peterborough, Reading, Sheffield, and London’s White City Westfield in preparation to reopen.

The Leicester store would also reopen when the local lockdown for the city is lifted.

This would take the number of reopened John Lewis shops to 42.

The John Lewis Partnership said the decision to shut eight of its stores was made to “secure the business’s long-term future and respond to customers’ shopping needs”.

Prior to the pandemic, the eight outlets were already “financially challenged” but customers have moved away from stores and towards shopping online faster as a result of coronavirus, it said.

The group estimated that between 60% and 70% of John Lewis sales will be made online this year and next, compared with 40% before the coronavirus crisis.

Around 1,300 of its workers, known as partners, will now enter consultations over the cuts.

The company said that, if redundancies are confirmed, “every effort” will be made to find new roles where possible across the group.

The shift towards online has seen the company double capacity at its Waitrose supermarket arm, while it also plans further investment in John Lewis’s online business.

However, it stressed that John Lewis shops have a “vital role” within the business.

John Lewis Partnership chairwoman Sharon White said: “Closing a shop is always incredibly difficult and today’s announcement will come as very sad news to customers and partners.

“However, we believe closures are necessary to help us secure the sustainability of the partnership – and continue to meet the needs of our customers however and wherever they want to shop.

“Redundancies are always an absolute last resort and we will do everything we can to keep as many partners as possible within our business.”

Ms White added that the partnership will soon announce the results of a recent strategic review to help boost the performance of its brands.