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Marks & Spencer has been given approval to demolish its flagship Marble Arch store on London’s Oxford Street.
The green light from housing secretary Angela Rayner ends a three-year battle over the art deco building.
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’s proposal to knock down the 1929 building and replace it with a modern retail and office complex had already been approved by Westminster council when it was called in by Tory minister Michael Gove in 2022 following opposition from heritage and environmental campaigners.
The retailer was successful in a High Court challenge against the ruling to block the redevelopment earlier this year.
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