Rochdale M&S survives closure

Marks and Spencer logo

Rochdale will not be losing another of its major retail stores. The Rochdale branch of Marks & Spencer survived the chop after the chain announced the closure of 27 of its nationwide stores.

M&S, which suffered a 7.1 % fall on its UK like-for-like sales in the run up to Christmas, is to cut 1,230 jobs as well as making 450 head office staff redundant.

Branches that will close are, for the most part, Simply Food stores, including one in Ripon, with only two, Valley Park, Croydon and Woking, being main chain shops.

The news comes despite the stores enticing more than 56 million customers through their doors in the last ten days before Christmas.

"The volumes that we sold were greater than last year and the traffic we had in our stores was as much as last year," stated Sir Stuart Rose, M&S boss. “We're just finding that customers individually didn't have as much to spend."

Staff that opt for early retirement could find their pensions dramatically cut.

Woolworths finally ended its long-term reign of Yorkshire Street last weekend and the loss on M&S would have been another major blow for the town centre.