Marks & Spencer reveals £13m investment plan for the North East
Marks & Spencer has revealed a £13 million investment in the North East including a multi-million pound transformation of its Newcastle city centre store along with a brand new store in Washington Galleries.
The retailer’s Northumberland Street, Newcastle store will be transformed "top to bottom" with a fresh-market style Foodhall and a new, refreshed Clothing, Home & Beauty department.
Work will begin on the store, which has been a fixture of the Newcastle street since 1932, will begin this month. The redesign will be carried out in stages so the store can stay open, with the new Foodhall expected to be fully completed later this year. Improvements to the Clothing, Home & Beauty department will follow and be completed by early 2024.
M&S has been trading at Northumberland Street since 1932
The news follows the announcement that the retailer is set to open a brand-new, bigger M&S store at the Galleries Retail Park in Washington. Work is already underway on the site, which brings together three previously separate units on the Galleries Retail Park to create the new space.
An existing M&S Simply Food store at the location will stay open throughout with the new, enlarged store due to open in early 2024.
The £13 million announcement follows investment in the North East by M&S last year to update its store in Newcastle’s Silverlink Shopping Park and the M&S Foodhall in Gosforth.
M&S has 21 owned stores across the North East – spanning the region from Berwick-upon-Tweed to Teesside, employing 2,100 staff, as well as an additional six M&S stores in hospitals and travel settings including rail and fuel stations.
The new stores will feature the latest M&S technology, such as Scan & Shop and digital screens to help make it quicker and easier to Click & Collect orders, with parcels ready in under 60 seconds.
Helen Cowie, Regional Manager for the North East at M&S, said: “M&S has been a part of local communities across the North East for well over a hundred years, and throughout that time we’ve always been innovating to keep delivering an excellent shopping experience for our customers – whether it’s the opening of one of our first ever Penny Bazaars in Newcastle’s famous Grainger Market in 1895, or launching our first ever shopping centre site in the country at the Metro Centre in 1986.
“We’re proud to have been trading from our store on Northumberland Street since 1932. Over the years we’ve undertaken plenty of refurbishments and extensions to make sure the store keeps delivering for local customers and today’s investment – as well as our plans for an exciting new store at Washington Galleries – shows that we’re as committed as ever to offering shoppers in the North East the very best of M&S.”
The investment in the region is part of Marks & Spencer's wider £480 million store optimisation programme which involves the retailer creating "bigger and better" stores across the UK. M&S recently revealed its ambition to accelerate what was initially a five-year store rotation programme and target delivery within three years – by 2025/26.
As part of its programme acceleration, M&S is already expecting to open 20 new bigger, better stores in total this year, including 12 new M&S Foodhalls and renew an additional 12 existing M&S stores with the latest new store design and technology.
Plans to upgrade its London flagship at Marble Arch have been thwarted for now, after Communities Secretary Michael Gove stepped in and blocked the demolition of the Art Deco site. M&S is now considering whether to walk away from the location altogether.
