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We have continued to invest in all areas of the business. New concepts are being introduced across all branches, to ensure our shops remain appealing destinations in the internet age. These include a Beauty Retreat concept, recently launched at John Lewis Cheadle, and new concepts for Home and Technology as launched at John Lewis Stratford City. Designer collaborations, such as those with Osman Yousefzada and Clements Ribeiro in fashion and Bethan Grey in home are being introduced and at the same time private label collections such as the ‘John Lewis & Co’ classic menswear range and collaborations with emerging designers such as Ptolemy Mann and James Joyce in home are adding an extra dimension to the ‘newness’ on offer to John Lewis customers.

We continue our strategy to grow our selling space. We have just opened our exciting new John Lewis Stratford City shop, and in the next month two more at home shops will open in Chester and Tamworth. We are also exploring the opportunity to introduce full-line flexible format department stores in key locations in the UK. The first of these will be trialled in Exeter from autumn next year. At the same time John Lewis continues to work with developers to explore potential new locations for fullline flagship shops such as the one recently announced in Birmingham city centre.

Over 1,000 new Partners will be recruited to John Lewis to support our second half openings.

John Lewis’ reputation for outstanding quality, value and service was again this year recognised by Verdict, awarding it ‘Britain’s favourite retailer’ in 2011 for the eighth time in the award’s 12 years.

Capital Expenditure

Capital investment in the first six months of the year was £253.8m. In Waitrose we invested £149.5m, primarily on transforming five branches acquired last year from Sandpiper CI, which opened in the Channel Islands this year, nine new and acquired branches and eight convenience stores. In John Lewis we invested £75.7m primarily on the new store at Stratford, two new at home stores, and refurbishments at Reading, Cheadle and Peter Jones.

In addition, £28.6m was invested centrally, mainly in internally developed systems which support the growth and efficiency plans of Waitrose and John Lewis.

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