EXETER'S John Lewis is to scale back its opening hours from the end of July.
From July 27 it will open until 6pm instead of 7pm on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
It will continue to open late, until 8pm on Thursdays and 7pm on Saturdays and between 11am until 5pm on Sundays.
City leaders have said they are 'disappointed' with the decision – it had been hoped that John Lewis' later opening would encourage other businesses to follow suit as the city seeks to create an evening economy.
John Harvey, the city centre manager, has said that there is consumer demand for later opening and accused some retailers of being out of touch with customers' needs.
Derek Phillips, vice president of Exeter Chamber of Commerce said: "The chamber is disappointed that some other retailers did not follow the lead of John Lewis in staying open until 7pm, and we understand their reasoning behind changing their later opening hours to Thursday and Saturday.
"However, we are pleased that John Lewis is continuing to support the extended trading hours campaign."
Kate Connock, branch manager at John Lewis Exeter said: "Whenever we open a shop in a new location we try to match most closely the hours that we think are appropriate to trade.
"After a fabulous year and a half in the city and the conclusion of the city's review of core trading hours to trade until 6pm Monday to Saturday and until 7pm on a Thursday, we felt it was timely to review our own trading times.
"We are making a small change to weekday evenings with the exception of Thursday and the adjustment moves us closer to the city's proposition but still offers a full late night for those customers wanting to take advantage of an evening's shopping."
Mr Harvey said: "This is no great surprise, John Lewis are not doing anything radical here."
"It is just part of an on-going dialogue and we are encouraging as many retailers as possible to open later on a Thursday and until 6pm on other days in the week."
Mr Harvey said later opening times in the city would take time to establish.
"These things take time to take root," he said.
"At the last count we had about 30 per cent of shops opening late on Thursday, which is about the same percentage when we first started Sunday trading," he said.
"We are not suddenly going to get it up to 90 per cent.
"There is overwhelming consumer demand for this, and there is recognition among a number of businesses that they need to meet that demand. But some retailers are out of step with public need."
Andrew McNeilly, manager at the Guildhall Shopping Centre said: "We are obviously disappointed that John Lewis have taken the decision to close earlier during the week, but fully understand the commercial rationale behind the decision.
"We are however, very pleased that even with reduced hours they continue to actively support the extended trading hours campaign for Exeter city centre.
"Obviously with the high level of public support for extended trading the Guildhall will continue to remain open from 9am until 7pm Monday-Saturday so we are hoping that with John Lewis closing an hour earlier it won't influence our trade too much."
