Marks & Spencer has reacted angrily to Michael Gove’s decision to call in the planned redevelopment of its flagship Marble Arch premises.
Secretary of state for levelling up, housing and communities, Michael Gove’s decision means that Marks & Spencer’s plans will now be assessed by a planning inspector, who will look at the project and make a recommendation to the government.
M&S group property, store development and technology director Sacha Berendji said he was “bewildered and disappointed, and maintained that “political grandstanding” would have a “chilling effect for regeneration programmes across the country” and flew in the face of the government’s levelling-up agenda.
The redevelopment plan – including new office as well as retail space – had prompted some criticism, partly on environmental and heritage grounds.
However, Berendji said: “After two years of working with Westminster City Council, the GLA and the local business and resident community, which has supported the development at every stage, we are bewildered and disappointed at Michael Gove’s baseless decision to call in the proposed redevelopment of our Marble Arch site.
“The secretary of state has blocked the only retail-led regeneration in the whole of Oxford Street in a building which was refused listed status due to its low design quality and, while safe, cannot be modernised through refitting as it’s three separate buildings containing asbestos.
“Twenty per cent of units on Oxford Street lay vacant and the secretary of state appears to prefer a proliferation of stores hawking counterfeit goods to a gold-standard retail-led regeneration of the nation’s favourite high street.
“All the while this political grandstanding goes on we cannot get on with creating a better place to shop for our customers, a better place to work for our colleagues and a better public realm for the community in a store that would use less than a quarter of the energy required by the existing buildings.
“Indeed an independent assessment of the building’s carbon impact across its whole life cycle concluded that the new build offered significant sustainability advantages over a refurbishment and, on completion, will be amongst the top 10% performing buildings in London.
“For a government purportedly focused on the levelling-up agenda, calling in this significant investment in one of our most iconic shopping locations will have a chilling effect for regeneration programmes across the country at a time when many town centres are being left behind and the property market is ever-more precarious.”
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