A new M&S has opened on the site of the old shopping centre. For some locals it’s a sign the area is on the up.; but others think it shows who the area is for now.
By 7:20 am on Thursday, Ash was already in the queue. The doors of Elephant and Castle’s new M&S Foodhall would not open for another 40 minutes, but Ash lives just over the road and had only been out of bed for five minutes.
“We wouldn’t be here 40 minutes before opening otherwise,” Ash said. “I love it.”
Ash was far from alone. Ahead of the 7:45 am ribbon cutting, the queue had wrapped around onto the northern end of Walworth Road and was still growing.
It was a mixed crowd with people of all ages and young families all excitedly waiting for the opening as well as the free tote bag being handed out to the first 300 shoppers in the queue.
Some were discussing how long the area was without an M&S, since the Walworth Road store, a few doors downs from East Street Market, closed in summer of 2024.
The M&S on the new Ragstone Street is one of the first shops to open at The Elephant, the £500 million town centre that developer Get Living has built in the heart of the area. The store has created more than 60 jobs, according to the company.
Retailers Oliver Bonas, Mango, Pret, Søstrene Grene, Starbucks, and Superdrug are part of the same first-day wave. The Elephant Exchange, a food hall featuring 14 independent street food kitchens, An Everyman Cinema and HeyTea are still to come.
The shops stand where the Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre stood for 55 years; it opened in 1965, closed in September 2020 and was demolished the following year.
Its food shops included an Iceland and, until 2019, a Tesco Metro. Around them there were Latin American cafés, market stalls and dozens of independent traders.
Ash never saw it in person. “Only through pictures,” she said. The Elephant and Castle Ash knows is the one that is “massively changing”.
“Years ago, it was somewhere you probably wouldn’t want to go out late at night,” Ash said. “But with the new shopping centre, it’s becoming super popular. It’s becoming the place to be.”
Asked what the M&S adds to the area, Ash did not hesitate: “A certain level of class, I would say.”
Ash knows how that can sound: “I understand there’s a certain level of gentrification,” she admitted. “But for me personally, it is what I’m looking for. To me, it’s a draw to the area.”
Not everyone saw it that way. Tia, who has lived in the area for years, has watched it change.
“Before, it was a melting pot,” Tia said. “Now, I’d say it’s still a melting pot, but it’s changed a lot in the last 10 years.”
To her, the new M&S “probably reflects the type of people that live here now, whereas before it was a lot more diverse.”
Asked about the new shops arriving around the area, she chose the same word Ash had. “Gentrification,” she said. “It’s a shame in a sense that local communities and vendors have been pushed out. It’s more commercialised. I guess there’s not much of a community sense anymore.”
But Tia was at the opening too. Since the old store closed, there has been no M&S close to home. “We were in need of one,” she said. “M&S is nothing new to me.”
The vendors Tia mentions are well documented. The charity Latin Elephant compiled a list of around 40 long-standing independent traders who it said were never offered a relocation space by the developer or Southwark Council.
All were still trading in January 2019, when the council granted permission to demolish the centre. It said 31 were offered a £3,000 grant by the council, which the traders saw as “very insufficient.”
Get Living says that the new centre is meant for the existing community as well as newcomers. It has said some units will go to local traders at discounted rent, and DistriAndina, a Latin food market already known locally, is in the line-up for a space. Of the 485 rental homes above the shops, 172 are classed as affordable.
Tom, who works for Multiplex, the company that built the development, has worked in Elephant and Castle for five years. He saw the old shopping centre and said his firm came on board as its demolition finished.
“I think this is a marked improvement,” he said. “It regenerates the town centre.”
Not all of it has arrived though. The new Tube entrance he points to has been built as a concrete shell but is not expected to open until 2028 at the earliest. University of the Arts London’s new building for the London College of Communication, next to the tube station, is due to open in September 2027.
M&S itself has changed too. M&S Food gained 1.5 million new customers over the past two years, according to the retailer’s latest half-year results.
Ash puts its pull with younger shoppers down to social media and to Kathryn Turner, the retailer’s director of food product development, whose TikTok and Instagram videos have made her recognisable enough that someone came to Ash’s Halloween party dressed as her.
The prices, Ash argued, are less of a barrier than some people assume. “The core food isn’t necessarily more expensive. It’s when you come in and buy a chocolate tin for £10 that the pounds add up.”
Tia was less interested in the hype. Asked why she had come, she listed three things: “It’s new, I live in the area, they’re giving totes. So why not?”
On everything else that has changed around her, she simply said: “What can you do?”
All images by Samantha Amadi.