The John Lewis store at Futura Park should reopen next month.
- Credit: CHARLOTTE BOND
Over the last week, Ipswich appears to have had a couple of pieces of good news about its emergence from the pandemic - but for anyone who thinks that we are unique in problems we are facing, it has been a real wake-up call.
The future of the John Lewis chain of department stores and at home retail warehouses across the country has been a subject of speculation for months - several closed last year, and last week there was a flurry of speculation that eight more were to shut.
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Ipswich Central to host conference on vision for town | East Anglian Daily Times
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Hand sanitiser in, ground coffee out
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has added handwash, loungewear and home exercise kit to its “shopping basket” of goods used to calculate the UK cost of living, in a sign of how spending habits have changed during a year of lockdown.
Indeed, if you want to know more about pandemic shopping trends, “forget the fashion pages”, says City A.M. - the ONS list “tells us what’s really going on”.
A total of 17 items have been added in the national statistical institute’s latest annual review, with ten removed and 729 left unchanged. The new additions also include smartwatches, hand weights and electric and hybrid cars, while white chocolate, staff canteen sandwiches and gold chains are out, and ground coffee has been replaced with coffee sachets.