Final plea to save flagship London Marks & Spencer store from demolition

Heritage leaders have called on Westminster council to grant a stay of execution for one of Oxford Street’s best known landmark stores before it is demolished.

Planning chiefs meet on Tuesday night to decide whether Marks & Spencer can send in the bulldozers to knock down its 90 year old Marble Arch flagship and replace it with a new nine-storey building.

The food and fashion chain insists the shop at 458 Oxford Street is “hugely inefficient” and suffers from declining sales - in contrast to its other Oxford Street store - in part due to its “complex and confusing layout.”

The chain hopes to replace it with a massive new development with a much smaller M&S branch- less than half the size of the existing shop, offices, a restaurant and cafe, a gym, and a new pedestrian walkway that would not be completed until 2027.

The plans have already been recommended for approval by Westminster officials but councillors on the planning committee will take the final decision.

However, Henrietta Billings, director of Save Britain’s Heritage, said the proposals would mean the loss of a “handsome landmark” and would also be in contravention of the council’s own net zero targets because of the huge amount of energy needed to knock down and replace the three buildings on the site.

She said: “Westminster City Council has set its own commendably high net zero targets, yet this massive demolition and new build scheme blasts a colossal hole in meeting them.

“Marks and Spencer must seize this opportunity to boost their green credentials and keep this part of London’s heritage in the process. Built to a high specification, this prestigious building is ready for adaptation and repurposing to suit a variety of uses, and capable of lasting another 100 years.”

The original building Orchard House - a hybrid of Art Deco and Greek neoclassicism - was designed to plans by architects Trehearne & Norman with Marks and Spencer only occupying the lower floors initially.

The store was known as “The Arch” by employees and once made more money per square foot than any other shop in the world. Simon Marks, the son of the retailer’s founder, would visit daily from the company’s corporate headquarters on Baker Street.