The closure of the Marks & Spencer store in Bolton town centre has been confirmed. Council bosses reacted with anger to the news, saying they were 'extremely disappointed' and revealing the town hall would be 'contacting the business to make the case that it should remain open'.
The planned closure of the 'flagship' store on Deansgate in the heart of the town's centre is another bitter blow for Bolton's retail offering, following the demise of Debenhams, BHS and C&A. The popular Prestons of Bolton jewellery store at the famous Timeball building on Deansgate in the town centre has also been lost over recent years, together with Beales department store, formerly Whitakers.
It comes just days after the retailer announced plans to ramp up its store overhaul with aims to open 20 new shops across the UK in a move that will create more than 3,400 jobs. The group said that over the next financial year, it would open eight full-line stores in shopping centres including the Trafford Centre in Manchester, as well as in retail parks and high streets across key cities.
The new Trafford Centre store will take over the empty Debenhams and the plans include a new food hall in Stockport. Stockport did have an M&S food hall up until April 2021, when it's branch in the Merseyway Shopping Centre closed.
It's understood staff at the Bolton store were informed of the news today - Wednesday - when it opened for business.
M&S, which blamed 'changing shopping habits', said that 'wherever possible', affected staff would be offered alternative roles within the business, although exact numbers are not as yet known.
Ben Heaps, M&S Regional Manager, said in a statement today: "Shopping habits are changing, so we're rotating our store estate to make sure we have the right stores to offer customers a brilliant shopping experience. As part of this transformation, we have today announced to colleagues our proposal to close our M&S Bolton store at 35 Deansgate.
"Our priority now is to talk to our colleagues about what this announcement means for them and wherever possible, offer them alternative roles with M&S. We appreciate that this will be disappointing news for some but it means we can invest in many of our other stores in the North West.
"We will be working hard to keep serving customers in our nearby local stores – including our M&S Middlebrook and M&S Bury The Rock stores which both offer a wide range of M&S Food and Clothing & Home products, and our nearby M&S Foodhalls in Walkden and Prestwich where customers can also Click & Collect purchases from M&S.com.”
"Reshaping our store estate also includes investing in opening new stores and renewing existing stores – for example in the local area we have recently renewed our Bury The Rock store and we have also just announced a major investment in a new store at the Trafford Centre.
"We have also been investing in our stores across the wider North West region. As well as opening a brand-new M&S Foodhall for Macclesfield in November, we also have an upcoming M&S Foodhall opening in Stockport and a major store set to open in the Liverpool ONE shopping centre this summer."
The new openings, said M&S on Monday, would bring investment in new stores to £480 million.
The plans come under a wider restructure of its retail footprint, with the group last year revealing it would reduce the number of its full-line stores by 67 to 180 by early 2026. It has 247 full-line stores and 316 food halls currently, against 275 and 301 respectively in March 2019.
M&S recently emerged as one of the winners of the Christmas trading season, with a 6.3 per cent rise in like-for-like sales across its food halls in the 13 weeks to December 31, while it saw clothing and home comparable store sales rise 8.6 per cent.
A spokesperson for Bolton Council told the Manchester Evening News: "We are extremely disappointed by the news that Marks & Spencer plans to close their Bolton town centre store. M&S is a hugely popular flagship destination for Bolton shoppers, and we will be contacting the business to make the case that it should remain open.
"We regularly update our plans for the future of the wider town centre and will now be considering our options given this latest development. The council continues its work to attract more private investment into the town centre, including at our the upcoming Invest in Bolton event on March 2."
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