Marks & Spencer (M&S) will open nine stores in November, which is the largest number opened by the retailer in a single month.

The department store chain said that the openings represent an investment of around £80 million and will support 2,200 local jobs across the UK.

Three of the new stores are food halls, while three openings are revamped stores.

The three new full line stores are located in Birmingham’s Bullring, Lakeside Thurrock and Manchester’s Trafford Centre. These are all store relocations and part of M&S’ aim to investment to regenerate vacant sites.

The retailer added that it plans to switch focus from 247 stores to 180 full line stores selling a wider range of clothing, food and home products.

M&S also plans to open over 100 bigger food halls by 2028.

“Stores are key to our business, and we see them as part of our competitive advantage. Increasing numbers of customers are heading back in to stores to experience the best of M&S all under one roof, supported by outstanding service from our colleagues, and we expect this to continue as we head into Christmas,” said Sacha Berendji, operations director at M&S. “To deliver our biggest ever store opening month which supports thousands of jobs is an outstanding effort from the team and shows just how serious we are about accelerating our rotation plans so we are in the right locations for our customers.”

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