Marks & Spencer is set to close its branch in Bolton town centre.

The news was broken to workers at the Deansgate store earlier today, Tuesday, with management claiming the move has been made in response to ‘changing shopping habits.’

M&S have had a presence in Bolton since 1892 when it opened a Penny Bazaar in the Market Hall.

This comes amid other closures proposed across the country.

M&S regional manager Ben Heaps said: “Shopping habits are changing, so we’re rotating our store estate to make sure we have the right stores to offer customers a brilliant shopping experience.

“As part of this transformation, we have today announced to colleagues our proposal to close our M&S Bolton store at 35 Deansgate.”

Mr Heaps says that the company has made efforts to support employees who may now be threatened with losing their jobs as a result of the closure.

He also says that M&S hopes to continue offering a range of products to customers through other branches elsewhere in Greater Manchester.

He added: “Our priority now is to talk to our colleagues about what this announcement means for them and wherever possible, offer them alternative roles with M&S.

“We appreciate that this will be disappointing news for some but it means we can invest in many of our other stores in the North West.

“We will be working hard to keep serving customers in our nearby local stores, including our M&S Middlebrook and M&S Bury The Rock stores which both offer a wide range of M&S Food and Clothing & Home products, and our nearby M&S Foodhalls in Walkden and Prestwich where customers can also Click & Collect purchases from M&S.com.”

The news has come as a bitter blow for Bolton town centre.

A spokesperson for Bolton Council said: “We are extremely disappointed by the news that Marks & Spencer plans to close their Bolton town centre store.

“M&S is a hugely popular flagship destination for Bolton shoppers, and we will be contacting the business to make the case that it should remain open.

“We regularly update our plans for the future of the wider town centre and will now be considering our options given this latest development.

“The council continues its work to attract more private investment into the town centre, including at our the upcoming Invest in Bolton event on March 2.”

This announcement comes not long after the company announced that it was planning to close around a quarter of its branches around the country.

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At the time the announcement was made last October no definite decision had been made with regards to the Bolton Deansgate branch.

It comes as part of the five-year plan which the retailer has told investors involves aiming to have 180 “full-line shops” down from the current 247 by early 2028, targeting “lower productivity” outlets.

In that same time, it plans to open an additional 104 Simply Food outlets as the retailer moves towards groceries over large clothing and homeware stores.