Eight months after Rochdale Borough Council signalled they would fight to the bitter legal end to retain Marks & Spencer as anchor tenant at the £80M Riverside retail scheme, the council have secured victory.

In November 2017 the store chain announced in that it was to pull out of the 50K SF deal.

After a pause for thought, the council stated in January 2018 that they did not regard this as the last word in the matter, and implied they would take legal action.

“As far as we’re concerned, M&S have signed a legally binding contract to take space in the Rochdale Riverside development and we fully expect them to honour that commitment,” Rochdale Council Leader Allen Brett said at the time

Now M&S have confirmed they will take the floorspace, developed by the council with Genr8 Developments and Kajima with the backing of M&G Investments.

“Construction is well underway, and we are on-track to open to the public, Easter 2020. We have a fantastic line-up of tenants already committed to the scheme with further announcements imminent," Genr8 Developments Partner Mike Smith said.