John Lewis threatens to withhold 20 per cent of service charges
John Lewis is threatening to withhold up to 20 per cent of service charge to landlords to protest the increase in payment amounts .
The department store said it is attempting to reduce costs but has been faced with service charge hikes at some of its shopping centre branches.
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The news comes after it was revealed that the John Lewis Partnership is seeking to slash its senior management team by one third in a bid to cut costs.
Around 75 senior management members will be let go from the current total of 225 working in head-office.
There will no longer be divisional boards or separate management directs for John Lewis & Partners and Waitrose & Partners.
“At a time when we are doing everything we can to reduce our cost base, we have unfortunately been faced with regular increases to the service charges we pay for some of our shops in shopping centres,” a spokesperson for the company said.
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“Over the last three years we have seen an increase in service charges of 20 per cent and these continued increases are simply not acceptable – particularly in the absence of strenuous efforts by landlords to work collaboratively with us to reduce these costs.
“We are investing more in our current shop estate than ever before to do everything we can to encourage customers and grow footfall to our shops and we hope that our Landlords will support us in continuing to do this”.
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