New site built to transform Newcastle Marks & Spencers

The huge vote of confidence in the region includes new jobs at the new Washington store at The Galleries, and a transformation of the Northumberland Street store in Newcastle.

The interior of Northumberland Street will have a 'top to bottom' multi-million pound redesign, 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 in 1932, will begin this month.

The redesign will be carried out in stages so the store can stay open, serving customer as normal throughout, with the new Foodhall expected to be fully completed later this year. Improvements to the Clothing, Home & Beauty department will follow and be completed by early 2024.

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How the new store will look (Image: Press release)

The Newcastle store back in 1932 (Image: Press release)

The news follows the announcement that the retailer is set to open a brand-new, bigger M&S store at the Galleries Retail Park in Washington, to offer a bigger range of M&S products, 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 – nearly double the size of the current offering.

Construction work is already underway to bring together three previously separate units on the Galleries Retail Park to create the 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 in spring 2024. There will be opportunities for all colleagues working in the current store to transfer and the retailer has confirmed the new store will also create additional new jobs for the local community when it opens next year.

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 across the North East – spanning the region from Berwick-upon-Tweed to Teesside, supporting over 2,100 jobs in local communities, as well as an additional six M&S stores in hospitals and travel settings including rail and fuel stations.

This latest round of investment will include mobile “Scan & Shop” – currently used by 33,000 customers each week – which lets shoppers use their phones to scan and bag items as they shop and digital screens to help make it quicker and easier to Click & Collect orders, with parcels ready in under 60 seconds.

The Newcastle store in 1936 (Image: Press release)

Helen Cowie, 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 over a hundred years, and throughout that time we’ve always been innovating to keep delivering an excellent shopping experience for our customers – whether it’s 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 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.”

The retailer was recently awarded Employer of the Year in the Movement to Work Youth Employability Awards in recognition of its Marks & Start programme. Run in partnership with The Prince’s Trust, the programme has been going for over 10 years, and this year alone has supported 30 young people in the North East with work experience, with over 80% of them going on to secure employment with M&S.

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M&S stores in the North East recently reached the milestone of two million meals donated to charities and good causes across the region through its partnership with Neighbourly which launched in 2013.

Now in its eleventh year, the food surplus donation scheme is helping to redistribute more fresh, good quality food that is too good to waste than ever before with M&S’ 2023 Sustainability Report recording a 46% reduction in food waste across the country. This sets the retailers on track to meets its Plan A sustainability roadmap to halve food waste by 2030.

In the North East alone, the food surplus prevented from going to waste has saved the equivalent of 3,380 tonnes of CO2 emissions. 

The renewal of M&S Newcastle and the new store in Washington Galleries are key parts of the retailer’s £480 million investment across the UK, generating over 3,400 new jobs.

M&S is already expecting to open 20 new bigger, better stores in total this year, including 12 new M&S Foodhalls and renew an additional 12 existing M&S stores with the latest new store design and technology.