Giant flagship store opens in city centre

Hundreds of people queued to be first into a new giant flagship Marks & Spencer.

The new store, in Bristol's Cabot Circus shopping centre, has taken over the space vacated by House of Fraser in 2024.

The opening has been welcomed by retail chiefs in the city centre which has faced challenging times in recent years, with one developer saying the nearby Galleries centre is "obsolete" ahead of a planned redevelopment.

The opening marks the return of Marks & Spencer to Bristol city centre after its Broadmead store shut in 2022.

Already this year accessories chain Claire's has gone into administration, and Poundland also announced 68 store closures, painting a gloomy picture for UK high streets.

In 2022 Marks & Spencer itself began the process of shutting more than 60 stores across the country.

BBC West Environment and Business Correspondent Dave Harvey said people should not believe that the closure of smaller M&S stores a few years ago means the chain is abandoning the high street – it's not.

"The approach now seems to be 'go big or go home'.

"M&S and other businesses like it are investing in these larger, multi-million pound outlets in larger shopping centres, stores that are high tech and also very high end in the way they are designed.

"After the serious cyber attack M&S suffered many retail experts believe some customers are more wary of online shopping, which underlies the need for physical shops.

"So while in the West the smaller M&S stores closed in place like Bristol, Cheltenham, Swindon and Weston-super-Mare, you now have this big new store in Bristol and also the one in the Southgate Shopping Centre in Bath," he added.

M&S regional manager Ali Ivery said the opening had created more than 100 jobs.

"We're so excited to say: 'Bristol, we are back'," she added.

The retailer has said the branch is one of 16 new M&S stores opening across the UK this financial year, as part of a £300m investment.

It follows almost half of the chain's profits being wiped out after M&S was hit by a cyber-attack, which left shoppers unable to buy online from the company for months.

The chain's bosses revealed statutory profit before tax - a figure that reflects all costs for a period - slumped 99% from £391.9m to £3.4m for the first half of the year, compared with the year prior.

M&S' leaders predicted profits should recover in the key Christmas period as shoppers turned out in force, which happened in Bristol on Thursday during the chain's new store opening.

Hundreds of people queued to be the first to step foot inside the shop.

Leah said she had been queuing since 08:00 GMT.

"I think there were about 20 of us in the queue. I was a bit worried there would a massive queue but by 08:30 it was getting pretty long," she said.

Another shopper, Rose, said she thought the new store was "fantastic".

Judith, who travelled 15 miles (24 km) to attend the opening, said: "I love Bristol and it's just great to see Marks and Spencer back again."

Nick Turk, a retail analyst for Colliers, said Cabot Circus was a much better location for M&S than nearby Broadmead.

He also said he does not believe the city centre store will have an impact on people shopping at The Mall at Cribbs Causeway, on the city's northern outskirts.

"I think there are different reasons for going to Cribbs and going to Cabot," he said.

"Cabot is in the city centre and is more foot-based, more public transport, whereas Cribbs is very much more a regional shopping centre... and people come from a long way."

Paul O'Brien from Hammerson, which owns Cabot Circus, told BBC Radio Bristol it was "an exciting day".

"We're convinced this is the right thing to bring a retail giant back into Cabot Circus, back into the heart of Bristol," he said.

"M&S [is] the most requested brand from our catchment, from our customers. We're delighted at being able to give them that."

He said other store openings and the return of a cinema - the multi-screen cinema in Cabot Circus closed in 2023 - would bring "thousands" more customers back to the shopping centre.

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