UK | The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government has approved the redevelopment of the M&S store at Marble Arch.
M&S had submitted a planning application to redevelop the Marble Arch store in March 2021.
“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,” said M&S CEO, Stuart Machin.
“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.”
Machin added that M&S shared the Government’s ambition to breathe life back into the cities and towns and were pleased to see they were serious about getting Britain building and growing.
“We will now move as fast as we can. Now is the time to regenerate the West End to regain its position on the world stage as a global shopping destination.”
As of May, footfall had reduced by 30 percent on pre-pandemic levels, compared with just 15 percent further east. The investment in Marble Arch has been the only retail-led regeneration on the street.
Savills reported that closing the M&S store would be ‘catastrophic’ for the immediate retail environment. Oxford Street has now recovered, but vacancy rates remained roughly three times as high as the pre-pandemic level.
Investments from other street retailers, such as IKEA, HMV, and Uniqlo, and the Mayor of London's plans to pedestrianise the street were signs of this recovery, but the M&S Marble Arch store was integral to the regeneration of the West End.
The new building will be amongst the top one percent of new buildings in London in terms of sustainable performance. It will use less than a quarter of the energy, with 95 percent of the existing building materials recovered, recycled, or reused and halved water consumption.
The proposed building has a design life of 120 years and carbon payback within 11 years of construction. Since the initial proposal, M&S has committed to further reducing the development's whole-life carbon footprint by ten percent.
A whole-life carbon assessment (WLCA), undertaken by leading environmental consultants Arup, concluded that the new build offered significant sustainability advantages over a refurbishment. Reduction in building-regulated operational energy exceeded the Government’s stated 78 percent carbon reduction target by 2035.
While the aim was always to consider refurbishment first, retrofitting the Marble Arch site into a new, modern flagship store is impossible. The team has tested sixteen different plans to retrofit a flagship store, all of which are untenable due to the site's complexity. An independent planning inspector accepted this in the public inquiry.
“Even a heavy refurbishment is highly likely to involve more embodied carbon and leave its structural flaws unremedied, limiting our options to improve energy use. Now more than ever, we need private investment to ensure our towns and cities are not left behind.
Montagu Evans’ analysis demonstrated that the built environment surrounding Selfridges, which is adjacent to the Marble Arch site, consists of buildings of varying ages and architectural merit.
It firmly concluded that the new M&S store would improve, not harm, this setting. This includes replacing a congested side road with a new pedestrian area, removing unsightly and light-limiting street-level canopies, and introducing new tree-lined public spaces.
“We always seek to retrofit first—in Chelmsford, Cheltenham, and most recently, Brixton, we have breathed new life into buildings while respecting and preserving their heritage. In other locations, including Stevenage, Dundee and Selby, we’ve taken over and regenerated sites that were lying vacant.”
M&S applied for planning permission to redevelop Marble Arch in March 2021. More than three years later, they eagerly waited for an answer from the government on whether the development could proceed.
