M&S wins four-year fight to rebuild flagship London store

Marks & Spencer has been told it can demolish and rebuild its flagship London store, 18 months after its plans were blocked by the previous government.

Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner ruled the scheme – a new 10-storey development with a smaller M&S store and other facilities including offices – could go ahead.

It will see three buildings on Oxford St knocked down.

The company reacted with fury 18 months ago when then-Levelling Up, Housing and Communities secretary Michael Gove rejected the recommendations of planning inspectors.

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The Conservative government said then that the public benefits of the company’s plans were “offset by the potential harm to nearby heritage landmarks”, namely the Selfridges department store nearby.

It also criticised the environmental impact of the redevelopment.

The 1929 Art Deco building near Marble Arch had reached the end of its life, M&S had argued, and threatened to pull out of the site altogether.

The company had told the government that such a decision would have been another nail in the coffin for London’s premier shopping street which, at the time of the planning row, had more than 40 stores lying vacant.

Its chief executive, Stuart Machin, described that decision as “laughable” and “utterly pathetic”.

It was reconsidered after the Conservative government was on the wrong end of a High Court judgment in March that the grounds for Mr Gove’s decision were unlawful.

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Mr Machin was all smiles on Thursday while welcoming the result of the final application.

He said: “I am delighted that, after three unnecessary years of delays, obfuscation and political posturing at its worst, under the previous government, our plans for Marble Arch – the only retail-led regeneration proposal on Oxford Street – have finally been approved.

“We can now get on with the job of helping to rejuvenate the UK’s premier shopping street through a flagship M&S store and office space, which will support 2,000 jobs and act as a global standard-bearer for sustainability.

“We share the government’s ambition to breathe life back into our cities and towns and are pleased to see they are serious about getting Britain building and growing. We will now move as fast as we can.”

M&S has not always been so full of praise for the Labour government.

It warned recently that prices may have to go up in reaction to measures in the chancellor’s October budget that will raise employer National Insurance contributions and therefore, its costs, by at least £60m.