Marks & Spencer pulls out of flagship Blackburn Mall move

9:00am Saturday 6th March 2010

Exclusive By Tom Moseley

MARKS and Spencer will not be moving into Blackburn's £66million new shopping centre, the Lancashire Telegraph can reveal.

The announcement comes after months of high-level talks failed to steal a deal between the store, Blackburn with Darwen Council and The Mall.

Council bosses had hoped Marks and Spencer would take a flagship 50,000 sq ft store over three-storeys of the new shopping centre.

It is understood the high street giant plans on retaining its existing store in the town.

The failure of the negotiations means the new market in the ground floor of the complex will return to the size that was originally planned, but it will not open until April 2011.

Yesterday traders were given 12 months to quit the current site in Ainsworth Street, which will be demolished to make way for a new supermarket and bus station.

The deal is said to have broken down over the amount required to entice Marks and Spencer from King William Street into the Mall.

While the council, which has a 12 per cent stake in the shopping centre, is understood to have offered £6million and the Mall an undisclosed amount, it is believed the parties were still around £2.5million apart.

In October the Lancashire Telegraph had revealed the plans to bring the store into The Mall, and councillors voted to redesign part of the ground floor so it could be accommodated.

Blackburn MP Jack Straw, who helped broker the talks in London, said: "I am disappointed, but all the parties tried very hard to reach agreement, and I am clear that it is not an issue of allocating blame to anyone for a second.

"For the time being, the numbers don't quite stack up. The margins we were talking about were not very big, but in the end they were show-stoppers."

Clothing giant Primark is the anchor store in the shopping centre, which is set to open in July.

The council's Tory regeneration chief Alan Cottam claimed shoppers would visit the new centre from 'across the county and beyond' once it is finished.

Labour opposition group leader Kate Hollern criticised the 'expensive gamble' undertaken by the council.

She said: "I am not bothered about Marks and Spencer because I always feared it would lead to the town centre shrinking.

"Where it is at the moment helps places like Northgate and Sudell Cross. At the end of the day, we are back to where we were 12 months ago."

Darwen Street jeweller Phil Ainsworth, of the Town Centre Partnership Board, said: "It's a blow to the new shopping centre, and it's a disappointment because it would have been nice to have a new Marks and Spencer.

"It was a good idea to try and get them in there. Let's hope they now choose to upgrade the existing store."

A Marks and Spencer spokesman said: "Marks and Spencer constantly reviews opportunities to develop stores across its portfolio.

If the Marks and Spencer plan had gone ahead the new market, which is costing £8million, would have been a third smaller.

Council bosses will now have to fill an extra 48 stalls. The new 68,000 sq ft complex will have 127 stalls, of which 61 will sell food and 50 non food.

In addition, there will be one cafe, plus another nine 'catering stalls' and the rest will be mini shops.

Council bosses have long spoken of the need for a 'high quality food offering' to be the core of the new centre, and are confident of filling the spaces by the time it opens in April 2011.

Coun Cottam added: "The new continental-style market will be the first of its kind in the country and will be a huge attraction for shoppers."