It is 1,042 days since Marks & Spencer first submitted its plans to Westminster council for the demolition of its famous Oxford Street flagship store near Marble Arch and replace it with a nine-storey complex including a new shop, offices and a pedestrian arcade.
When the proposal went in on July 2, 2021, Boris Johnson had a year left to enjoy residing at 10 Downing Street.
Yet weeks away from the third anniversary of the application, M&S is no closer to knowing whether it can send in the bulldozers.
In the meantime, the scheme has become a huge planning cause célèbre at the heart of the debate over whether ageing buildings should be retrofitted rather than demolished to reduce carbon emissions.
M&S has always argued that its new development will, in fact, result in far fewer emissions over its 120-year lifespan than the deeply inefficient cluster of life-expired buildings, including art deco Orchard House, that currently accommodate the store.
The plan has been given the green light by the local authority, the Mayor (twice) and a planning inspector, who conducted a lengthy tour of the site.
But a year ago it was blocked by Michael Gove on environmental grounds, a decision that the retailer’s furious boss Stuart Machin called “utterly pathetic”.
Then in March, Judge Nathalie Lieven said Gove’s ruling had been unlawful on five counts out of the six brought forward by M&S’s lawyers in a judicial review.
You might think that was the end of the tale — yet still it rumbles on.
Marks and campaigners opposed to the proposal, led by heritage group Save, have been asked to submit new arguments that are currently sitting on the desks of Gove’s officials.
The Secretary of State could block the proposal again on different grounds, a decision likely to trigger a new lengthy legal challenge, order a second public inquiry, a process that could last another year, or even wave it through. There are no indications of the timeline for his new ruling.
The M&S saga is in danger of becoming the longest-running farce in the West End; sometimes it feels that Dickens’s fictional probate case Jarndyce and Jarndyce moved at a brisker pace.
No-one doubts the importance of the decision, and planning due process must be seen to be done.
But at a time when Oxford Street is battling to return to its former glory after the Covid era near-death experience, the endless twists and turns are shackling the renaissance of the western end of Europe’s premier shopping destination. While the Elizabeth line has brought animation and spending back to the eastern stretch of Oxford Street, the Marble Arch end is still struggling. Footfall remains about 30 per cent down on pre-pandemic levels, compared with just 15 per cent further east, and sales at M&S’s flagship have halved over recent years.
Other potential developments at the western end are on hold pending the outcome of the M&S application.
Machin has said that M&S will close the store that has been its flagship since the Thirties if it does not get the all-clear to redevelop it.
That would be a huge blow but would at least give another operator a chance to make a go of it. Oxford Street and the broader West End need clarity — and soon — one way or another.
