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Marks and Spencer will knock down its flagship art deco store on London’s Oxford Street after it received approval from UK housing secretary and deputy prime minister Angela Rayner.
The retailer said it had secured the hard-fought approval more than three years after it first submitted the application to redevelop the Marble Arch store.
M&S chief executive Stuart Machin said on Thursday he was delighted with the outcome after “unnecessary years of delays, obfuscation and political posturing at its worst, under the previous government”.
Rayner’s decision to reverse the stance of her Conservative predecessor, Michael Gove, on one of the UK’s most high-profile planning controversies is a signal that she plans to use her powers to clear barriers and favour development.
Claire Fallows, planning partner at law firm Charles Russell Speechlys, said: “The decision has always been more about political messaging . . . a green light from Rayner is a strong political move.”
M&S had been awaiting a decision since March when it won a legal challenge against the Conservative government, which had blocked it from demolishing the store in the renowned shopping district to make way for a new store, restaurants, offices and a gym.
In a rare bit of praise from a retailer since the UK Budget, Machin added: “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.”
The plans have angered architectural and environmental campaigners, who have argued that refurbishing the store would be better for the environment than tearing it down.
On Thursday Henrietta Billings, director SAVE Britain’s Heritage, said “the government has chosen the easy option — business as usual — when it had a real chance to show leadership and ambition on this urgent issue”.
As housing secretary, Rayner has considerable discretion to review and decide planning cases, which she has already used to wave through housing developments that Gove sought to block, and launch reviews of big infrastructure projects including controversial data centres.
Alistair Watson, UK head of planning and environment at law firm Taylor Wessing, said the decision “is as straightforward as it comes”. “This is a major development scheme which has a variety of economic, social and environmental benefits, all of which were backed up with expert evidence in a full public inquiry,” he added.