Marks and Spencer Group PLC (LSE:MKS) has been told to retract statements relating to its plans for its Marble Arch store because they are “misleading and inaccurate.”
SAVE Britain’s Heritage, a conservation group battling the proposals, called out M&S at a public inquiry into whether the retailer can demolish the flagship Marble Arch site.
According to the Retail Gazette, the campaigners sent a legal letter to M&S chair Archie Norman demanding it retract “a number of false claims” M&S made to the media.
SAVE said the statements suggested that the group had accepted M&S’ position on several matters, including sustainability claims, which it denied.
“The defamatory statements misrepresent the differences between SAVE and M&S’s sustainability analysis, claim that SAVE accepts M&S’s position on the long-term sustainability benefits of the scheme, and misrepresent the evidence of Mr Simon Sturgis,” said the letter, cited in the Retail Gazette.
M&S has faced strong pushback on its plans to demolish and rebuild its iconic arch store from historic site groups, such as SAVE, and environmentalists.