M&S new store plans being held up by objections from Tesco

M&S is having its store opening plans delayed by persistent competitor objections – the same headwind faced by Aldi and Lidl.

Six planned M&S Foodhalls are currently delayed after Tesco lodged objections, with two of them subject to a judicial review requested by the supermarket.

A planned M&S Foodhall at Hatfield’s Oldings Corner received approval in July last year but remains in limbo awaiting a date for a judicial review oral hearing requested by Tesco. The hearing was due to take place this week but has been postponed by the court. 

Another in Blackburn’s Frontier Retail Park, owned by the Issa brothers, received consent in April last year and has since been subject to two judicial reviews launched by Tesco. Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council is also opposing the plans.

Tesco has argued that both stores were approved without applying a ‘town centre first’ approach.

Four more planned new M&S Foodhalls – at Northampton’s Riverside Retail Park, Formby Bypass, Stowmarket and Seaton – are delayed after objections from Tesco.

All of Tesco’s objections are on planning policy grounds. The Northampton Riverside plan has been delayed by a year after Tesco argued that combined with a proposed new Lidl it could harm nearby retail areas.

The Stowmarket plan received approval in April despite an objection from Tesco last year that it posed “delivery risks” because not all the proposed retail units had a confirmed occupier. The plans are now in the ‘consent order’ stage, in which a judicial review can be raised. 

Tesco is said to often lodge objections in the final days before an application is due to be considered, forcing the planning authority to postpone the hearing. The objections are rarely ultimately successful, but can add a year or more the process, in which plans to bring hundreds of new jobs to local economies are put on hold.

The planned Formby and Blackburn Foodhalls are among a £50m pipeline of new stores in the north west of England, which M&S said in March would create 300 jobs in the region.

M&S opened six food stores and two full-line stores last year. This year it planned to open 10 food stores and two full-line stores.

It has been building ‘bigger, better’ food stores of up to 18,000 sq ft, in a plan to have 420 Foodhalls by 2028, up from 328 in 2023.

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M&S has maintained grocery sales growth ahead of the market despite being hit by a major cyberattack in April. Its grocery sales were up 5.9% year on year the 12 weeks to 7 September, according to Worldpanel data.

Lidl – the fastest-growing bricks & mortar grocer in Worldpanel data every month since October 2023 – receives competitor objections to new stores so consistently that it views them as par for the course. Speaking to The Grocer in August, Lidl GB chief retail estate officer Richard Taylor said judicial reviews were “almost normal course of business for us”.

Aldi UK & Ireland CEO Giles Hurley has also spoken repeatedly about delays to new store plans caused by competitor objections. The Grocer previously revealed how nearly 40 proposed Aldi stores were being held up by planning objections from rival supermarkets.

Like M&S, Aldi and Lidl have ambitious store opening plans. Lidl is aiming to open 40 UK stores this year and continue the pace in 2026. It is due to open its 1,000th UK store in November.

Aldi said earlier this month that it would open 80 stores during 2026 and 2027. It currently has 1,060.

Both discounters are aiming to eventually have 1,500 UK stores. 

Alistair Watson, head of planning & environment at law firm Taylor Wessing, said competitor objections to new stores had been rife during the ‘race for space’ of the big four in the 1990s and 2000s, and the practice was now on the rise again. 

“Undoubtedly there has been [another spike],” he said. “For quite some time a large number of food stores had become established, so the market and people’s demands were covered.

“You’ve now got renewal of stores or smaller stores or bigger stores or more efficient stores, because we’re in this lifecycle of 20 or 25 years where the building needs to be replaced or improved, in addition to other supermarket operators now being in the UK.”

He said the objections meant the benefits of new stores to local areas were “delayed or deferred”, while they also created more work for “under-resourced” planning authorities.

But Watson said objections were also a product of the planning system and any supermarket choosing “not to fight in that way would be on the back foot”. 

Tesco said it did not object to the vast majority of competitor store plans and it only ever did so on material planning considerations and never on the basis of loss of trade or to cause delay. It noted that a range of statutory consultees had also raised material planning considerations with regard to the proposed M&S stores, including local councils, highway authorities, and bodies such as Natural England and the Environment Agency.