Michael Gove has blocked Marks and Spencer Group PLC (LSE:MKS)’s planned development of a new store on Oxford Street.
The retailer lashed out at the state's decision to call in its proposed Marble Arch development today.
“We are bewildered and disappointed at Michael Gove’s baseless decision to call in the proposed redevelopment,” said Sacha Berendji, group property, store development and technology director at M&S.
Gove, who was appointed Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities in September, pushed back against the plans.
This was even though, as M&S claims, the buildings due to be developed need to address existing asbestos and none of them are listed as conservation properties.
The retailer plans to modernise the building by constructing a store that would use less than a quarter of the energy required by the existing buildings.
It has worked with the local council in Westminster as well as the Greater London Authority and local community to get the plans approved.
It said an independent assessment of the building’s carbon impact across its lifecycle showed it would be “amongst the top 10% performing buildings in London.”
A fifth of units on Oxford Street are currently lying vacant.
“The Secretary of State appears to prefer a proliferation of stores hawking counterfeit goods to a gold-standard retail-led regeneration of the nation’s favourite high street,” Berendji said.