No opening date has been announced but staff at John Lewis in Watford are preparing for a reopening, according to the manager of intu Watford.

There has been plenty of discussion, particularly on social media, about the future of John Lewis in the town,after it was not listed as one of the first 13 to reopen when lockdown restrictions were eased.

Another nine stores were announced today to reopen on June 25 but Watford has not appeared on that list either.

Insiders suggested in April that some of its stores may never reopen due to the effects of the pandemic.

But intu Watford manager Vicki Costello appeared to quash any fears that John Lewis in Watford may have closed forever, during a Facebook Live with the mayor of Watford today.

Peter Taylor and Ms Costello were discussing how Watford's shopping scene fared this week after many shops reopened.

Ms Costello was also asked by a member of the public when it was likely John Lewis will reopen.

She answered: "I don't at the moment but keeping looking at the (intu Watford) website and as soon as the date us released by John Lewis themselves, we’ll update the website.

"I know they’ve (John Lewis) been very firm in their phasing because they are huge stores and they’ve got a lot to do in their stores to get them safe and to enable the one-way systems and all the screens put up.

"But they are in there working. I spoke to the store manager yesterday. They are in there with contractors getting it ready. So as soon as I know, you guys will know."

In total, John Lewis has 50 stores. So far 22 have been confirmed to reopen, including the branch in Welwyn Garden City

Berangere Michel, director for customer service at the John Lewis Partnership, which also owns Waitrose, said: “We are still reopening our shops carefully and in phases to ensure that our safety measures are absolutely right, and remain prepared to stop and review our plans if need be.

"We are already applying lessons learned from our first store openings earlier this week.

"We found that in some shops we were able to increase the number of customers and still maintain robust social distancing, and made our signage clearer in order to help customers navigate the changes.

"Although we are not able to offer every single experience that we used to, we are still managing to offer customers a really varied shopping experience that is as close to normal and as enjoyable as we can possibly make it.

"Customers will still be able to touch products, lie on beds, try on and test wipeable products such as sunglasses, prams, and tech products, and get the personal advice they expect from our partners."