Bill Bryson joins top names in opposing M&S Oxford Street demolition plan

He joins architects Steve Tompkins, Sarah Wigglesworth and Ian Ritchie and MP Duncan Baker in voicing his aversion to the proposal.

Bryson, the renowned American-British author, this week donated £500 to the fighting fund established by SAVE Britain's Heritage to cover its legal costs in opposing Marks & Spencer at the inquiry on October 25.

The crowdfunder has a target of £20,000 and is now approaching the halfway mark.

Bryson, who announced his retirement in 2020 and is best known for his books Notes from a Small Island and A Short History of Nearly Everything, told the AJ: ‘I believe it would be a great shame to tear down the M&S building. I have no special knowledge or insights about the matter. I just wish to help stop a bit of foolishness.’

In recent days, many other prominent figures including architects, engineers, academics and others have written to the planning inspector, arguing that the 1929 building must be retained on the grounds of the climate emergency as well as heritage.

These include architects Steve Tompkins, Ian Ritchie, Sarah Wigglesworth, BBC Broadcasting House architect Mark Hines and Michelle Ludik of HOK.

Others to have written include property developers such as Charlie Baxter and Ashley Nicholson, Tory MP Duncan Baker – who introduced a private members' bill on embodied carbon earlier in the Commons earlier this year – Nicholas Boys Smith of Create Streets and academics Alice Moncaster and Barnabas Calder.

Pilbrow + Partners’ demolition and replacement scheme, which has an upfront cost of almost 40,000 tonnes of carbon, was approved by both Westminster City Council and the GLA before being called in by then communities secretary Michael Gove in June.

Wigglesworth said in her letter that demolishing and rebuilding the store would be a ‘climate crime’ amid a planetary emergency ‘the like of which we have never experienced before’.

Referring to the AJ RetroFirst campaign, she said that examples of highly successful retrofit included Angel Building (Islington), Baltic Flour Mill (Gateshead) and Tate Modern (London), Kingston University Arts building (Kingston upon Thames), Park Hill (Sheffield) and the Post Building in High Holborn (London).

She added: ‘While nobody says it will be easy, and it may be expensive to retrofit [M&S Marble Arch], we must stop thinking only of the capital cost and start to factor other issues into our calculations.

‘M&S is perhaps one of the few retailers that has the resources to carry out a comprehensive retrofit. The more this happens the easier and cheaper such an approach will become, as skills are gained and new products will become available.'

Stirling prize winner Tompkins, a co-founder of Architects Declare, wrote: ‘Number 458 Oxford Street is a handsome piece of urban architecture, made with high-quality durable materials. It is a successful component of the wider streetscape and a familiar London landmark. For these reasons, the building appears to be an entirely suitable candidate for deep retrofitting.

‘Pilbrow + Partners are skilful architects and I am sure would do an admirable job of bringing the building into the next phase of its life.’

Tompkins referred to his own practice Haworth Tompkins’ ‘deep retrofits’ such as its scheme at Kingston Universit. ‘I believe projects of this type must play a far more central role if we are serious about addressing the planetary emergency,’ he said, ‘and now is an opportunity for the planning inspectorate to show real leadership.’

Meanwhile Baker, in his letter to the planning inspector, urged them to reject the M&S new build scheme and questioned the whole-life carbon report produced by Arup for M&S as part of its successful planning application to Westminster. The MP’s bill sets out to make such assessments mandatory.

He wrote: ‘Whole-life carbon assessments would bring transparency to the environmental cost of construction. Nonetheless, we must compare like with like, and the proponents of new schemes must be careful not to offer false comparisons.

‘For instance, a proposal for a new building that is designed to the highest environmental standards should naturally be compared with a deep retrofit option also designed to the highest environmental standards, not a light-touch refurbishment.’

Baker concluded that the M&S plans were incompatible with the UK’s legally binding Net Zero commitments.

‘Demolishing the M&S building on Oxford Street pays no attention to the immediate embodied carbon cost that a brand-new building on this site would have,’ he wrote. ‘A deep retrofit would be far less damaging in terms of carbon emissions. If this country is to reach its net zero objectives, it is vital that we rethink proposed demolitions like this, with far more attention paid to the embodied carbon impact.'

Prior to Gove calling in the project, a report produced by architect and net zero expert Simon Sturgis commissioned by SAVE had also argued that the M&S proposals were not compliant with the government’s net zero commitments or the GLA’s policy to prioritise retrofit. Gove had also been lobbied to launch a public inquiry in a letter organised by the AJ and SAVE and signed by a host of leading names.

Pilbrow + Partners has been approached for comment.