PRESS RELEASE: Bill Bryson and George Clarke among leading figures urging Angela Rayner to save M&S Oxford Street

Open letter organised by SAVE Britain’s Heritage and Architects’ Journal calls on new Secretary of State to send powerful message about Britain’s disposable attitude to buildings

21st August, 2024

Writer Bill Bryson, broadcasters George Clarke and Kevin McCloud and London Eye designer Julia Barfield are among a host of architects, developers, historians and sustainable building experts urging the new government to save M&S Oxford Street – and send a powerful message that Britain’s disposable attitude to buildings is over.

They have thrown their weight behind an open letter organised by SAVE Britain’s Heritage and the Architects’ Journal calling on Communities Secretary Angela Rayner to reject M&S’s highly controversial proposal to demolish its flagship 1920s building near Marble Arch. The retailer wants to replace three buildings on the prominent corner next to Selfridge’s with a 10-storey office block.

The case – which saw SAVE win a high-profile public inquiry against M&S in 2022 – has attracted huge interest from the public, media and property industry. After M&S mounted a legal challenge to Michael Gove’s decision, the case is now back on his successor’s desk for redetermination. Angela Rayner is expected to make a decision imminently.

The joint open letter, sent to the Secretary of State today, says: “The future of Marks & Spencer’s flagship 1929 store at Marble Arch remains centre stage in an ongoing national debate about sustainability and the future of our High Streets.

“The grounds for refusing the scheme have only grown in the three years since M&S made its planning submission, and there is now an unanswerable case for the new government to act in accelerating the industry’s shift towards reusing, repurposing and extending buildings instead of demolishing and wasting them. Make no mistake: M&S Oxford Street is a test case.”

It adds: “Attitudes across the built environment industry are moving rapidly in favour of prioritising retrofit for climate, resource and heritage benefits. Allowing M&S to proceed with its wasteful and polluting plan is now seen as indefensible.

“We urge you to take this opportunity to refuse M&S’s proposal and create a landmark decision in this vital area. Far from being anti-development, such a decision would be good for the development industry, good for innovation, good for heritage, and good for the climate.”

Key issues at stake:

:: Sustainability: In environmental terms the last government made it clear that it would act on the significant embodied carbon emissions released by demolition and, especially, the new materials required for rebuilding. Sustainability expert Simon Sturgis found the current M&S plan – which involves the immediate release of almost 40,000 tonnes of C02 into the atmosphere – was incompatible with the Government’s commitment to reduce emissions by 68% by 2030 and achieving Net Zero by 2050.

:: Innovation and insight: In May the re:store design ideas competition jointly held by SAVE and the Architects’ Journal demonstrated a wide range of progressive and forward thinking ways to re-use and adapt the M&S building commercially. The competition received entries from architectural practices across the UK showing what is possible and offering insight into distressed department stores on every high street that could be repurposed and extended.

:: Heritage: The loss of the elegant 1920s Orchard House would rob Oxford Street of one of its “flotilla” of distinguished 20th-century department store buildings. Its proposed replacement would harm the setting of its listed neighbour, Selfridge’s, one of London’s greatest beaux arts landmarks.

:: Policy: The policy landscape is changing fast as our understanding of embodied carbon advances. Westminster is one of many councils that have begun introducing retrofit-first policies since 2021.

:: Commercial sense: Reusing buildings makes financial sense for their owners and for us all. Tenants are increasingly demanding characterful buildings that align with their sustainability commitments. The new government has said becoming a zero-waste society could add a £70bn boost to the economy.

 

The letter to Angela Rayner:

Dear Secretary of State,

456 - 472 Oxford Street London W1C 1AP

The future of Marks & Spencer’s flagship 1929 building at Marble Arch remains centre stage in an ongoing national debate about sustainability and the future of our High Streets. The grounds for refusing the scheme have only grown in the three years since M&S made its planning submission, and there is now an unanswerable case for the new government to act in accelerating the industry’s shift towards reusing, repurposing and extending buildings instead of demolishing and wasting them. Make no mistake: M&S Oxford Street is a test case.

In environmental terms, the last government made clear it would act on the significant embodied carbon emissions associated with demolition followed by replacement building. For a Labour government elected partly on its commitment to climate action and creating a zero-waste economy to fall short of this – perhaps under the misapprehension that such an approach is anti-development – would be a tragedy. Indeed, Westminster City Council is in the process of adopting a proposed new ‘retrofit-first’ policy, while recent research by consultants Lichfields points to eight other London boroughs bringing forward similar policies including Camden and the City of London.

Well before all of this, a report by the renowned sustainability expert Simon Sturgis – a special advisor to the UK Parliament Environmental Audit Select Committee and member of the Construction Industry Council Climate Change Committee – found that the current M&S plan (which involves the immediate release of almost 40,000 tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere), was incompatible with the Government’s commitment to reduce emissions by 68% by 2030 and achieving Net Zero by 2050, Westminster Council’s declaration of climate emergency, and the GLA’s policy to prioritise retrofit. It also demonstrated that a refurbishment scheme was entirely possible.

In social and heritage terms, there is huge public opposition to the M&S plan because it would destroy an elegant and important 1920s retail building to produce a large office building (with some retail). This would also damage the well-loved setting of Oxford Street and its wider West End neighbourhood.

But by no means does this groundswell of opposition equal nimbyism. In May, the re:store design ideas competition jointly organised by the Architects’ Journal and SAVE Britain’s Heritage and held at Ravensbourne University London, demonstrated numerous progressive and forward-thinking ways to reuse and adapt the M&S building commercially. The competition received a wide range of innovative and thoughtful ideas from architectural practices all over the UK, showing what is possible at this site and offering insight into how distressed department stores on every High Street could be repurposed and extended.

In economic terms, your government has committed to creating a zero-waste economy – in line with other countries such as the Netherlands and Belgium. As DEFRA Secretary Steve Reed said in March, such a move will have numerous benefits and could add a ‘£70bn boost to the economy.’

It’s also important to realise that the smash-and-grab plan adopted by M&S bucks a far more sustainable trend on Oxford Street. Comprehensive retrofits such as the 1930s former DH Evans/House of Fraser building, the former Debenhams flagship store, and the former Top Shop at Oxford Circus demonstrate a more resource- and carbon-efficient approach, compatible with the UK’s trajectory to Net Zero. Agile and forward-thinking property developers working in central London such as Fore Partnership and Seaforth Land will tell you that their tenants are increasingly demanding characterful commercial retrofits that ‘earn the commute’, not the outmoded glass and steel boxes of yesteryear, which come with a vast embodied carbon footprint attached.

Attitudes across the built environment industry are moving rapidly in favour of prioritising retrofit for climate, resource and heritage benefits. Allowing M&S to proceed with its wasteful and polluting plan is now seen as indefensible. We urge you to take this opportunity to refuse M&S’s proposal and create a landmark decision in this vital area. Far from being anti-development, such a decision would be good for the development industry, good for innovation, good for heritage, and good for the climate.

Yours faithfully,

Henrietta Billings, MRTPI, director, SAVE Britain’s Heritage

Marcus Binney, CBE Hon FRIBA, president, SAVE Britain’s Heritage

Will Hurst, managing editor, The Architects’ Journal

Bill Bryson, OBE HonFRS, author and journalist

Julia Barfield, MBE RIBA FRSA, co-founder of Marks Barfield Architects, designer of the London Eye

Kevin McCloud, MBE, presenter, Grand Designs

George Clarke, architect and broadcaster

Annalie Riches, co-founding director, Mikhail Riches Architects, winner of 2019 Stirling Prize (Goldsmith Street housing, Norwich), and contender for this year’s Stirling Prize (retrofit of Park Hill estate phase 2, Sheffield)

Sanaa Shaikh, ARB RIBA, architect, educator, activist with the Architects’ Climate Action Network (ACAN) and founder of Native Studio

Oriel Prizeman, MA (Cantab) AADip PhD (Cantab), professor of sustainable building conservation, Welsh School of Architecture Cardiff University

Benjamin Derbyshire, Dip Arch Cantab PPRIBA FRSA HonAIA, chair, HTA Design LLP, Historic England commissioner, president, London Forum of Amenity & Civic Societies

Rab Bennetts, founder, Bennetts Associates

Dr Michael Short, associate professor in planning, departmental postgraduate tutor programme director, MPlan City Planning, The Bartlett School of Planning, University College London

Dr Neal Shasore, head of school and chief executive, London School of Architecture

Griff Rhys Jones, OBE, president, Victorian Society and Civic Voice

Alberto Villanueva Galindo, MArch MA PGCE FHEA FRSA ARB, head of architecture, Ravensbourne University London

Simon Henley, principal of the twice RIBA Stirling Prize-nominated architecture practice Henley Halebrown

Basil Demeroutis, managing partner, FORE Partnership

Ashley Nicholson, founder, Verve Properties

Professor Ian Ritchie, CBE RA, architect, founder, Ritchie*Studio

Charles Saumarez Smith, CBE, historian, former chief executive Royal Academy, former director National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery

James Rixon, Architects Climate Action Network, Within Planetary Boundaries Studio

Sarah Wigglesworth, MBE RDI, founder, Sarah Wigglesworth Architects

Professor Andrew Saint, former general editor, The Survey of London, emeritus professor of architecture, University of Cambridge

Dr Chris Whitman, senior lecturer lead of history, Heritage and Conservation Research and Scholarship Group Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University, and signatory and coordinator of Heritage Declares

ENDS

 

Notes to editors:

1/ For more information contact Elizabeth Hopkirk – elizabeth.hopkirk@savebritainsheritage.org or the office on 020 7253 3500.

2/ Read the open letter HERE and The Times's coverage HERE.

3/ SAVE took on the M&S Oxford Street case in 2021. We fought and won a two-week public inquiry against M&S in autumn 2022. SAVE’s campaign has been backed by leading architects, engineers, developers, art historians, sustainability experts, celebrities including Kristin Scott Thomas – and hundreds of members of the public who helped us crowdfund £20,000 towards our legal costs.

4/ Read the story so far in The Battle for M&S Oxford Street: Why This Landmark Case Matters

5/ Credits for picture montage: Bill Bryson - The National Churches Trust, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons / Kevin McCloud - Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government and The Rt Hon Grant Shapps MP, OGL 3 <http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3>, via Wikimedia Commons / Julia Barfield - Timothy Soar

6/ SAVE Britain’s Heritage is an independent voice in conservation that fights for threatened historic buildings and sustainable reuses. We stand apart from other organisations by bringing together architects, engineers, planners and investors to offer viable alternative proposals. Where necessary, and with expert advice, we take legal action to prevent major and needless losses.