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17
Sept
Early morning M&S delivery proposals cause concern among Oatlands residents
Marks and Spencer is considering receiving deliveries at its Leeds Road food hall in Harrogate before six o’clock in the morning, and the plans are causing concern among some local residents.
M&S Food invited near neighbours to a meeting last Wednesday to discuss possible changes to its delivery regime, but only six people turned up, according to one who was there.
They told the Stray Ferret:
Currently, the main daily delivery takes place from 7am, with unloading finished by 8am. But that happens at the rear of the store, where there are baffles to reduce the sound.
But M&S is now proposing to receive its main delivery at the front of the store – where there is nothing to dampen the noise – from 5.45am.
They said the rationale was so it could ‘stock more products like Domestos’, and to ‘stop people going to Waitrose’.
They already take deliveries at the front of the store over three days at Christmas, but that’s just once a year, and we can live with that. But this would be every day.”
We live in line of sight and within earshot of the main entrance, but we weren’t even invited to the meeting – I found out about it by chance.
He added that he thought any such move could violate existing planning restrictions at the site.
The Stray Ferret asked M&S whether the details given by the local resident were correct, and if so, why stock would need to be delivered so early, and what plans the company had to minimise disruption to neighbours.
A spokesperson told us:
We are exploring options for extending our existing delivery arrangements at the store, so that we can better improve availability and standards in-store for customers.
We have had an initial conversation with near neighbours about initial proposals and based on their feedback, are taking some time to review different options. No planning application has been submitted.
The Oatlands store manager said during the meeting that a planning application would be submitted “within the next few weeks”, according to the resident who spoke to the Stray Ferret.
Café closure 'after Christmas'
The store manager also confirmed that the café in the Oatlands store would be closing. We asked M&S for more information, and the spokesperson told us:
In terms of our café, the closure was announced back in May and we are yet to confirm the exact closure date, however this will be after Christmas.
We know many of our customers want to be able to shop a wider range of M&S Food products and we are re-purposing the café space to deliver this.
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