Why M&S remains a bellwether for the British high street

At a meeting of Putney Conservative Association, Justine Greening, the local MP, was promoting the need for social mobility. It was vital for the wellbeing of the nation, she said, that more people like her, a state-educated Northerner, were able to get on, to be presented with opportunity and fulfill their ability.

When it came to questions, a hand went up. Social mobility was all very well, said her interrogator, but what did she feel about the closure of the Putney branch of Marks & Spencer? There were murmurs of approval in the room – this was a subject dear to the audience’s heart.

What was particularly galling, it turned out, was not only that the southwest London suburb was losing its cherished store, but that Putney was bracketed with a host of industrial towns in the North and Midlands that were being dropped by M&S, the once bellwether of prosperity. It was shaming, humiliating.

M&S has just announced another raft of shops earmarked to go: Ashford, Bedford, Boston, Buxton, Cwmbran, Deal, Felixstowe, Huddersfield, Hull, Junction One Antrim Outlet, Luton Arndale, Newark, Northwich, Rotherham, Sutton Coldfield and Weston-super-Mare. The one in my hometown of Barrow-in-Furness, where my parents shopped for fresh food every day, is also on the list.

The 17 proposed closures are part of the clothing, homeware and food retailer’s plan to shut more than 100 stores by 2022. So far, before this round, 30 stores have closed and another eight had already been named.

There will be more – many in the long-run beyond the 100. M&S now has 979 stores in the UK, of which 615 sell only food. It’s the other 364, the larger branches that carry food, clothing and homeware, that are at risk.

M&S makes 75 per cent of its profits from just 70 of its shops. That gives some idea of the agonies that lie ahead for Steve Rowe, the chief executive and his management team, as they grapple with an estate that grew in a different age, when M&S could do no wrong, when there was only M&S and competition was not what it is today, when shoppers did not have cars and out-of-town did not exist, when they had to journey by bus to the high street and lug their bags and online had not been invented.

But deciding to shut an M&S store is not a simple act of putting a red line through a name. Of course, it entails loss of jobs, the erasing of a presence, the scrapping of community relationships, and harm to the neighbouring retailers who feed off the M&S. It’s much more, though. To the places affected it’s seen as signifying rejection, that somehow they are not deemed “good enough” to have an M&S.

In many of those locations, the local M&S is the lasting symbol of a formerly buzzing town centre, a sign of its aspiration and middle-classness. Often it’s the only such name left standing or there’s still a Debenhams or a House of Fraser, but they’re not likely to be around much longer.

The folk in headquarters in London, have ruled they’re not fit for M&S. That’s how they see it, that’s how the Putney people saw it.

Closing an M&S is to deal a devastating punch. There are other chains that have pulled down the shutters and in some cases vanished completely. M&S, however, was still there, the icon that had catered for families for decades. While there was an M&S there was a high street that looked recognisably like the high street of yesteryear; there remained hope as well of a bustling, rich future. Not now.

Which is why, when an M&S goes, all hell breaks loose. The MP gets involved, as do the council, local media, retail and business groups, community action campaigners, and individual customers. The latter regard M&S as theirs. To shut a shop is to drop them individually.

It’s not the same as a Boots, New Look, Topshop, WH Smith – pick the departure of any brand, possibly with the exception of House of Fraser, and they do not have the same impact.

An M&S closure has to be handled sensitively. It’s not a case of issuing a bland statement from a regional director, and saying there will be a new food store opening nearby. This is what happened in Barrow’s case, where the town was told an M&S Foodhall was coming to Ulverston seven miles away. Good for Ulverston, but of little compensation to the inhabitants of Barrow.

It’s about researching how much the people understand about the reasons for closure, what would make up for their loss, discovering the language that helps them feel more positively, what could be done to soften the blow, to make them feel they were not being dumped (a much smaller Foodhall in Barrow, maybe, with click & collect for online clothing and homeward purchases, or managing the property portfolio more imaginatively – whatever might be practical). And it’s about joining up those findings with discussions with the MP, council, local media and the rest.

That’s not to be critical of M&S. The retailer, more than any other, is caught in the bricks and mortar versus online battle. It’s not business in isolation, it’s capitalism with a conscience, a CEO and colleagues who must be politicians, diplomats, social workers, as much as naked pursuers of a dividend.

It’s an extremely current, modern position to hold. Gone are the days when businesses merely had to keep their shareholders sweet. Today, it’s about satisfying a whole gamut of stakeholders, who, thanks to the internet, are in easy receipt of information and have an instant, fierce voice. M&S may be on troubled times but those times are shared by others. In that sense it remains very much the bellwether. Ask Putney, ask Barrow.

Chris Blackhurst is a former editor of The Independent, and director of C|T|F Partners, the campaigns, strategic, crisis and reputational, communications advisory firm