Lewisham Marks and Spencer to close in three weeks
Lewisham’s retail offer will see a big blow in coming weeks when the Marks and Spencer shop will close for good in less than three weeks on 1st August.
The store has a frontage on both Lewisham High Street and the shopping centre. Ironically a multi-million pound street upgrade is underway right outside the shop to entice shoppers to the town, with a new market pavilion planned metres away that could drive extra footfall.
It’s extremely unlilkely temporary works outside have played any part. M&S upper brass appear to dislike high street stores and havn’t invested in many for years regardless of localised changes.
They embody a short-term attitude in not factoring in improvements at the town alongside much new housing nearby that would have provided additional custom.
Little investment for years
This week I visited the shop in advance of closure where staff confirmed the closure date, with some being laid off and others moving to a shop in an out-of-town style retail park in Sydenham with worse transport links.
It’s clearly not a shop that’s had much investment in many years, looking dated and tired. It doesn’t appear they’ve bothered for many years in really appealing to customers.
There’s a small cafe in the middle of the store with no natural light. Why not locate it at the front beside the large high street-facing windows with natural light, which could also act to entice people in?
Closure of stores in London high streets would be a bit more understandable if the company had put much effort in. They often havn’t.
It all smacks of M&S not really bothering to try and appeal to shoppers in urban areas and ignoring forthcoming improvements in towns like Lewisham.
Replacement
They do say they will open a food-only shop but they can be tiny. It remains to be seen what emerges. Many have limited ranges and no clothing of course. A glorified Tesco Express. Whoop de do.
In terms of the shopping centre redevelopment the M&S building is not due to be demolished and anyway, that area of town is not included in the first phase. M&S shutting up shop now does not appear related to that plan.
This closure instead follows a pattern of M&S shutting high street shops in various areas while going headlong into big sheds in car dominated and soulless retail parks. Visiting M&S stores is often a miserable experience in such places and rubbish via trains and buses.
And this is London – where many people do use public transport.
Such retail park shops may make sense in places in dying towns across the country where high streets are doing badly and most people drive but turning their back on growing towns in inner cities like London – after not investing in those shops for years – is a crying shame.
In many ways I get it but can’t help feel this is throwing away a lot of goodwill and brand strengh. Maybe I’m guilty of romanticising the High Street but there are places that clearly can grow and thrive. Yet M&S leadership seem to have an obsession with out-of-town retail at all costs rather than a balanced approach.
Seeing clapped out stores left for many years in growing town centres speaks volumes. No wonder they don’t appeal.
It could well prove to be damaging for brand loyalty let alone business sense if they ignore growing towns seeing thousands of (expensive) new homes.
It’s all quite short-termist. From a High Street stalwart that’s much loved by many, the company risk becoming a forgettable, bland brand located in dull and dreary car-centric retail even in growing cities like London.
The m&s souless retail shed in Charlton outside the food side is usually deserted by customers and staff.
The Lewisham shopping mall has always felt an unpleasant place, since Chiesmans and the bridge were gone. The car park queues were dreadful. The large amount of bus services and stops are all over the place and queues are mayhem, lots of bus stops sandwiched miserably between the large blank facade of the centre and the bank barrier of the railway line.
All the new occupants have little money or need for things beyond Ikea, and order their food online?
Thousands of us live in walking distance of what is a vibrant, almost fully occupied and well used shopping centre. I walk there to shop several times a week and think it’s great. Also think very shortsighted of M&S to move out, though appreciate they currently have a two-storey shop that exceeds their needs. I’m sure they could have happily have been accommodated within the existing shopping centre much like Boots have and are now very central there snug between Sainsburys and Waterstones. There will be a huge hole in what’s on offer once M&S goes.
The connecting bridge came down decades ago and the car park is barely used so really no issues about queuing either. It’s been a couple of years since construction completed at the residential blocks by the station too
I’ve kind of avoided Lewisham myself for years whilst living in Greenwich for the last 8 years or so (though worked here for nearly 40), partly due to road traffic, which affects buses too, and with all the high rise construction going on it’s never looked or felt as appealing as it did many years ago. That was when my ‘dear old dad ‘, during his retirement, became the ‘security’ man for Chiesmans store. Getting called out at all hours to another ‘smash and grab window break! Surprisingly, he loved the job, and his partner in crime, ‘Chalky’. As a child, I loved the place; it had real character then, but mainly the toy store- what a magical place it was for me! ( in the basement, I seem to remember). It was, with no disrespect, the ‘poorer man’s Hamleys’ of its day, an exciting place for a child and their parents at Christmas. Both Lewisham and Woolwich, much later, fell under the developers’ love of money and our supposed ‘shortage of housing’ (which has never been solved anyway ) and turned them both into what I so sadly consider in the main to be ‘concrete jungles’. There’ll be those who differ, I’m sure, and love the current day for both. And certainly Woolwich has achieved some of its restored heritage around the Arsenal and the riverside. Maybe M&S, which has always been conservative (both big C and little c) and ‘lower middle to middle class’ in its offerings, prefers its locations out in the shires and those country market towns full of those wealthy retired and semi-retired ex-Tories (now either LibDems or ‘Reforms’) where its core market is to be found. How many of the young around Greenwich/Woolwich/Lewisham shop in M&S or even did decades ago? And if they do, there’s a big one still in Charlton for them. As an ‘old enough to be retired but can’t afford to’ guy (should be a word for that-suggestions welcome but not too derogatory haha) even now I still find their clothes too plain boring and their food overpriced and too packaged. It’s a changing world, and M&S try to change, but they are still M&S. Change the store into an open marketplace along the lines of those north of the river, and I’ll maybe be drawn back in, but I wouldn’t have been otherwise. Ask AI (yes, oldies use it too!) what the top clothing brands are for 30-year-olds. M&S doesn’t get a mention despite their attempts! It’s core market is 45+, and they are just the types leaving Lewisham for the young (those remaining are often trapped by no housing equity, but many, I’m sure, still love it). Controversial, I know, but it’ll get the debate going, and I mean no offence to anyone, simply an opinion which could be completely wrong. So leave M&S to the countryside, and bring in something which keeps London ‘swinging’, like it was in the 60s and 70’s or ‘cool’ in C21st terminology -especially in heatwaves 🙂
Very well said Derek Small
I agree with most of your comments & analysis Derek.
The M&S market demographic isn’t really there in Lewisham & Woolwich (when it was there) to justify such large stores.
Ironically, I think it would do pretty well in Blackheath where the Startrite shoe shop use to be.
I travel through Lewisham to work during the week via bus and i’ll be honest, while there are some nice places, overall it’s a absolutely horrible experience!
They spent lots of money on the market area, but already it looks grubby, littered and unloved.
Many of the shopfronts are an eyesore (there needs to be a template for shops to work to for a aesthetically cleaner look).
I also echo the Mave’s comment about the bus stops being all over the place and the feel of chaos. It really isn’t a pleasant shopping experience where you would want to relax and spend plenty of time there.
The whole experience is not positive and it starts before you even get there on the bus!
I haven’t properly spent time shopping there for years despite passing through there everyday of the week.
The same comments about Lewisham apply to Woolwich.
You can sped as much money trying to bring it up, but until they tackle the real issues, it’s going to be pointless/waste of money.
Throwing up flats left, right and centre, anti-social behaviour, aesthetically unappealing, soulless etc etc
I used to love going to Lewisham and Woolwich when I was a child (i’m now 45), and avoid the town centres unless i’m passing through to go somewhere else,
The riverdale in arf clean inside in case you aint eard n I love shoppin there. I know it aint for the upper middle classes on ere but yourn aint the only ones in town.