UK retailer Marks & Spencer has announced that it is ‘consulting with colleagues and their representatives’ over the closure of six stores, in Monks Cross, Portsmouth, Slough, Warrington, Wokingham and Worksop.
The group said that should the proposals go ahead, all of the 380 employees affected by the store closures would be guaranteed re-employment at a store close by.
Five-Year Programme
The announcement came as part of M&S’ ‘five-year programme to improve its UK store estate to better meet the changing needs of customers’, the company said. The company’s five-year programme was announced last November, following a review of the company’s store portfolio.
It also announced the opening of 36 new stores over the next six months, including 34 new Foodhalls, in locations such as Bishopsgate, Huntingdon, Aylesbury, Spinningfields and Strood, and two new Clothing, Home and Food stores, in Bracknell and Rushden.
The new openings will create around 1,400 jobs, the company said.
Convenient Locations
The planned openings and closures mean that “there will be more M&S colleagues working in an increased number of convenient locations, serving more customers,” said M&S chief executive Steve Rowe.
“It also means that we will open new stores, some will reduce in size, some will move, some will close and others will convert to Food-only. Each proposal we make will be very carefully considered with our colleagues and customers firmly front of mind. It is our intention that nobody leaves M&S and we will work as hard as possible to ensure that we can deliver against this promise.”
M&S currently operates 959 stores in the UK, including 615 Food-only stores.
© 2017 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Stephen Wynne-Jones. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine
