A SECOND Marks & Spencer store is being lined up for Worcester under plans for a massive £150 million out-of-town shopping park, it emerged today.

The popular retailer wants to create 200 new jobs by opening a huge 30,000 square foot outlet off Newtown Road at Worcester Woods fields, on the same site where John Lewis and Next have signed up.

Your Worcester News can also reveal how Sainsbury's has also agreed to support the bid, and has agreed to open a 60,000 square foot supermarket and petrol station creating 300 jobs if the park gets planning permission.

The news was revealed during a public exhibition today, where developer Land Securities outlined an ambition to create a "Worcester PLC" drawing shoppers from Birmingham, Cheltenham and Gloucester in instead of the other way around.

Under the grand plans M&S would keep its store in the High Street, trading from two locations, as would Next.

The move has already led to concern from the owners of Worcester's Cathedral Plaza, who say many out-of-town retail parks "play very little positive role" in their surroundings.

Today's exhibition, which continues tomorrow at The Hive, will culminate in a planning application being handed to Worcester City Council.

Lester Hampson, head of retail development at Land Securities, said: "This is a beautiful city and we want to make a serious investment here.

"I've asked the people coming in today, and they tell me they go shopping in areas like Cheltenham and Solihull.

"Getting a John Lewis here will draw in people who don't normally come to Worcester but go elsewhere in the region - what we want to do is create a 'Worcester PLC' so the whole city benefits.

"By getting new people from outside Worcester to come and see what this city has to offer, I believe the city centre will benefit too."

He said as well as the 1,000 retail jobs it will create in total once full, the whole 240,000 square foot retail park would generate "several hundred" construction jobs.

The aim is to open the complex by the end of 2016 featuring 11 shops of various sizes, swathes of green landscaping, a pond, 1,000 parking spaces, petrol station and bus route running off the site.

The four big brands of John Lewis, Next, M&S and Sainsbury's have all agreed at board level to sign up, with talks in the pipeline among other retailers.

More deals are expected to be revealed if the planning application gets the green light.

A statement from the Salmon Harvester Opportunity Fund, which already has planning permission for a £24 million Worcester Cathedral revamp, said: "Whilst the potential for jobs and new investment sounds exciting we would ask people who go to the consultation to consider very carefully what this proposal would do for Worcester.

"Often large retail schemes like this, so far from the city centre and so close to a motorway junction play very little positive role in their locale.

“Any scheme like this must be of benefit to the people of the city and the businesses in the city centre.

“We will be reviewing the proposals very carefully to understand how this scheme would benefit Worcester as a whole.”

Leading politicians have also fired a warning over making sure the city centre is protected at all costs.

Councillor Marc Bayliss, deputy city council leader and cabinet member for economic prosperity, said: "A John Lewis 'at home' is great, but I want to get my own categorical assurances about M&S committing to the city centre for the long term."

  • The Hive exhibition runs from 10am to 3pm tomorrow.

    Proposed site of the shopping complex: