M&S announces massive Newcastle store transformation with £13 million investment in North East

Today, M&S announced a £13 million investment in its North East stores for the coming year, with confirmation the interior of the retailer’s Northumberland Street store will be transformed in a top-to-bottom, multi-million pound redesign, offering Newcastle city centre shoppers the very best of M&S with a fresh-market style Foodhall and a new, refreshed Clothing, Home & Beauty department.

Works at the M&S Newcastle store, which has been a fixture of the city’s high street since it first opened its doors way back in 1932, will begin later this month. The redesign will be undertaken in stages so the store will be able to remain trading, serving customer as normal throughout, with the new Foodhall expected to be fully finished later this year. Improvements to the Clothing, Home & Beauty department will follow and be completed by early next year, 2024.

The news follows the announcement the retailer is set to open a brand-new, bigger M&S store at the Galleries Retail Park in Washington. The exciting new store will offer customers a bigger and better range of M&S products than ever before, with the retailer relocating from its existing Simply Food store into a 47,000 sq ft space with a new Clothing, Home & Beauty department and a bigger M&S Foodhall, almost double the size of the current store.

Construction work is already happening to bring together three previously separate units on the Galleries Retail Park to create the special new space. 

Ahead of the relocation, the existing M&S Simply Food store in Washington will stay open as normal until the new story is ready, expected to be next spring, 2024. There will be chances for all colleagues working in the current store to transfer to the new M&S Washington Galleries or other local M&S stores and M&S confirms the new store will create extra new jobs for the local community when it opens in 2024.

The £13 million announcement follows investment in the North East by M&S last year to update its store in Newcastle’s Silverlink Shopping Park and the M&S Foodhall in Gosforth.

M&S has 21 owned stores throughout the North East, spanning the region from Berwick-upon-Tweed to Teesside, supporting over 2,100 jobs in local communities, plus an additional 6 M&S stores in hospitals and travel settings including rail and fuel stations. 

This latest round of investment will enable M&S to reach even more customers in the North East, delivering the very best of M&S with the latest store designs and new in-store technology.

Helen Cowie, who is the Regional Manager for the North East at M&S, said: “M&S has been a part of local communities across the North East for well in excess 100 years, and throughout that time we’ve always been innovating to keep delivering an excellent shopping experience for our customers, be it the opening of one of our first ever Penny Bazaars in Newcastle’s famous Grainger Market in 1895, or launching our first ever shopping centre site in the country at the Metro Centre back in 1986.  

“We’re proud to have been trading from our store on Northumberland Street since 1932. Over the years we’ve undertaken plenty of refurbishments and extensions to make sure the store keeps delivering for local customers and today’s investment – as well as our plans for an exciting new store at Washington Galleries – shows that we’re as committed as ever to offering shoppers in the North East the very best of M&S.”