// Campaigners SAVE have demanded M&S retract statements that the group have accepted the retailer’s sustainability claims about its plan to demolition and rebuild its Marble Arch flagship
// SAVE chair Eric Reynolds wrote to M&S chair Archie Norman to demand a retraction and apology
SAVE, the group who faced M&S at a public inquiry arguing against the demolition of its Marble Arch flagship over the last two weeks, have said M&S have made “misleading and inaccurate” claims about its position and demanded their immediate retraction.
The campaigners have sent a legal letter to M&S chair Archie Norman demanding it retract what it terms “a number of false claims” it made to the media last week.
SAVE said the statement wrongly suggested that SAVE had accepted M&S’ positions on a number of matters, including the retailer’s sustainabilty analysis of the scheme.
It said that the “highly irresponsible statements” were likely to cause serious harm to its reputation and also asked for an apology.
The letter read: “The defamatory statements misrepresent the differences between SAVE and M&S’s sustainability analysis, claim that SAVE accept M&S’s position on the long-term sustainability benefits of the scheme, and misrepresent the evidence of Mr Simon Sturgis.”
Sturgis was SAVE’s expert witness on embodied carbon and sustainability.
M&S has said it remains “fully confident in the accuracy of our statement”.
A spokesperson said: “We are proud of our plans to deliver a bold, sustainable and innovative Marble Arch site which is the only viable and deliverable option and the sole retail-led regeneration on the nation’s most famous, but challenged, high street.”
See SAVE’s full letter to Archie Norman here
The contentious statements
M&S claimed on Friday that SAVE had accepted M&S’ sustainability analysis at the public inquiry, which the retailer said was “a significant move on their part”.
However, SAVE said that although its lifecycle carbon witness agreed a “joint position statement” with M&S’ expert this did not amount to an acceptance of M&S’ analysis of long-term sustainability benefits of the scheme.
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SAVE also said that M&S was incorrect to state that no witnesses on sustainability were called. It explained that instead, it was agreed that carbon experts that a joint position statement would be submitted.
It also pointed out that Sturgis, who M&S had referred to as ‘SAVE’s lead architectural expert ‘, was a sustainability expert at the trial.
SAVE also refuted M&S’ claim that Sturgis accepted that “significant demolition” was required. SAVE asserts that Sturgis said that “roughly a quarter” of the floorplate would need to make taken out.
SAVE chair Eric Reynolds said that M&S “misrepresentation of SAVE’s position is likely to cause serious harm to the organisation” and urged M&S to remove the “defamatory statements” if it does not want further action to be taken.
