The retail giant submitted a planning application to redevelop the store in March 2021.
But previous Secretary of State Michael Gove refused plans last summer for M&S to demolish and rebuild the store after campaigners said the building should be refurbished because of the amount of embedded carbon it contains.
M&S CEO, Stuart Machin said: “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.
“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.
“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. We will now move as fast as we can.”
M&S sustainability case for new store
The new building will be amongst the top 1% of new buildings in London on sustainable performance:
- It will use less than a quarter of the energy of today’s structure, with 95% of the existing building materials recovered, recycled or reused and the water consumption halved.
- The proposed building has a design life of 120 years and carbon payback within 11 years of construction.
- Since the initial proposal, we have committed to reduce the whole life carbon of the development by a further 10%.
- 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 well exceeds the Government’s stated 78% carbon reduction target by 2035.
While our aim is always to consider refurbishment first, it is not possible to retrofit the Marble Arch site into a new, modern flagship store.
- Our team has tested sixteen different plans to retrofit a flagship store, all of which are untenable due to the complexity of the site which is made up of three different buildings – of different heights, sizes and age. This was accepted by an independent planning inspector 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.
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