M&S drives forward with £23m investment in London portfolio as new Croydon store opens
Marks & Spencer is opening a new 38,000 sq ft store in Croydon’s Purley Way tomorrow, and it has today announced a £12.5 million investment in stores across London for the year ahead.
That will create 200 jobs and double the total new square footage achieved in its store estate in the capital last year.
It follows a £10.3 million in M&S’s store estate in London in the full year 2022/23, which also created 200 jobs. That totals almost £23 million investment and 400 jobs over two years.
Stuart Machin, Chief Executive of M&S, commented: “M&S has been innovating in London for over a hundred years. We’re proud that many of our high street ‘firsts’ were born in the capital – from operating a chain of penny bazaars across London in the early 20th century, to opening our first ever Simply Food here in 2001, and trialing our first new-look Foodhall design in Clapham in 2019.
“Today, a third of all M&S stores are located in London – whether in train stations, shopping centres, or high streets – and today’s investment shows that we are committed to offering shoppers in our great capital city the best of M&S for the next 100 years and beyond.”
On the new M&S opening in Croydon, Jason Perry, Executive Mayor of Croydon, said: “The opening of this new M&S store in Purley Way represents a significant investment in Croydon’s local economy and has created 150 new jobs in the area.
“The new store will enhance the shopping area in Purley Way for the local community and is a welcome addition to the branch in the Whitgift Centre, reinforcing the confidence that this leading national retailer has in the borough.”
Later this year M&S will be undertaking “a full renewal” of its Victoria Cardinal Place store, and it will be adding new Foodhall concepts in its Earlsfield and Liverpool Street Station stores, as well as relaunching its Waterloo Station store.
M&S’ investment in London also includes the proposed redevelopment of Marble Arch – the only retail-led development of Oxford Street.
Currently, 17 buildings are listed for demolition across Westminster with four on Oxford Street alone. M&S’ scheme will create thousands of jobs, an improved public realm, and will be “a modern, sustainable flag-bearing store”, in the top 1% of London’s sustainable buildings that will use only a quarter of the energy of the current building.
