Keith Massey mourns the passing, after a short five-year tenure, of John Lewis’s store at Vangarde (Letters, March 26).

The disappearance of John Lewis from York’s portfolio will be a sad loss and I hope that the personable and polished partners will all find fulfilling employment.

But we’ll get over it. Over the decades York has weathered the disappearance of Leak and Thorp, the huge Co-op department store, the giant Boyes by Ouse Bridge, Marshall & Snelgrove, the Novelty Rock Emporium, Hunter & Smallpage and Debenhams et al. As a lad, my working-class family gravitated towards the big Co-op and Boyes rather than their posher city-centre equivalents but we did enjoy riding the escalators in the labyrinthine Lewis’s (no relation to John) in Leeds!

With the rise and rise of online shopping the graffiti was on the wall for many larger establishments. These developments can be seen as evolution as our habits change. If a spin-off benefit of such big shop closures is a resurgence in local shops, all well and good. Things, as well as times, they are a’changing.

At least Bettys’ main presence in York will continue. It can’t go, as it’s one of our ‘ravens’, the departure of which would signal crisis and calamity for York.

Derek Reed, Middlethorpe Drive

John Lewis should think again over closure

I am originally from Hertfordshire and had a wonderful John Lewis situated in Watford to shop at (sadly now closed). So I was thrilled when I heard York was getting it’s own John Lewis.

What a huge blow that it is to close. Not everyone wants to sit on their backside trawling through shopping websites. This decision is too rushed. John Lewis needs to think again before it is too late.

Linda Walker, Wheldrake, York