Top retailer closes West Midlands store with more set to follow
Hundreds of jobs are at risk at Marks & Spencer after the retailer announced a further review of its UK estate, together with a series of store closures – including one on the West Midlands.
The retailer has said six stores will close by the end of April. They are: Birkenhead, Bournemouth, Durham, Fforestfach, Putney and Redditch.
Staff are being offered the opportunity to transfer to nearby stores.
However, a further eight stores are proposed for closure – Andover, Basildon, Bridlington, Denton (outlet), Falmouth, Fareham, Keighley and Stockport – and the retailer has placed 468 staff under consultation.
M&S said that should these stores close, in the first instance all staff would be redeployed or offered redeployment at other stores before redundancy was considered.
M&S has also reassessed and reduced its Simply Food opening programme, and now only plans to open a total of 36 owned and franchise stores over the next six months.
New locations will include Broadstone, Streatham Hill and St Albans. These stores will sell M&S food and drink and offer Collect in Store for Clothing & Home. The 36 stores will create 1,200 management and customer assistant roles.
Two stores are also due to relocate – Newry, (Northern Ireland), and Dover, (Kent), which will also convert from a Clothing and Food store to a Foodhall.
The closures form part of the retailer’s transformation plan, which it said it was implementing to modernise its UK store estate to better meet the changing needs of its customers.
The company announced in November 2016 that it intended to reposition around 25% of Clothing & Home space through a combination of closures, downsizes, relocations and conversions to food-only stores.
The latest action is further evidence of the difficult trading climate for the retail sector.
It comes as there are fresh concerns for the future of Toys R Us, with the company US parent reportedly looking to off-load the British arm of the business following poor Christmas trading.
Sacha Berendji, Director of Retail at Marks & Spencer said: “We’re committed to transforming M&S for our customers, colleagues and shareholders. Stores will always be an integral part of our customer experience, alongside M&S.com, but we have to ensure we have the right offer in the right locations.
“We don’t want any colleagues to leave M&S and we will work with each colleague individually on what is best for them as we endeavour to give everyone a role. However, we accept in some cases we may have to consider redundancy.
“We believe these changes are vital for the future of M&S and we will continue to accelerate the programme, taking tough but necessary decisions, as we focus on making M&S special.”
