Marks & Spencer has been given permission to demolish its flagship Oxford Street store.

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Marks and Spencer (M&S) will bring down its flagship. Oxford Street store after three years of planning delays on the Art Deco building.

Plans to refurbish the building as a nine-storey retail space, cafe, gym and office will now go ahead. Housing Secretary Angela Rayner Let go ahead.

M&S says its new store will be in the top 1 per cent of sustainable buildings in London, with a design life of 120 years and a carbon payback within 11 years of construction.

After years of legal wrangling after opposition from sustainability and heritage experts, the former housing secretary Michael Gove In July 2023, it moved to dismiss the application.

Stuart Machin, CEO of M&S, said: “I am delighted that, after three unnecessary years of delay, confusion and political posturing, the worst under the previous government, our plans for Marble Arch – Oxford The proposal for the regeneration of the only retail leadership on the street – has finally been approved.

“We can now continue our work to help rejuvenate the UK’s premier shopping street with a flagship M&S store and office space that will support 2,000 jobs and set a global standard for sustainability. will work on

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“At M&S, we share the Government’s ambition to breathe life into our cities and towns and are delighted to see that they are serious about building and growing Britain. Now we can move forward as fast as we can.” will grow.”

Orchard House, the building where M&S will be demolished, was built in the late 1920s at the Marble Arch end of Oxford Street. M&S opened its flagship store in the building in 1930, before applying to Westminster City Council for permission to demolish it in 2021.

After Mr Gove rejected the plans in July 2021, a High Court judge ruled that the government had made a number of wrong decisions in blocking the plans. On Thursday, Ms. Rayner gave permission for the building to be demolished and rebuilt.