WORK looks set to start next month to bring one of the best known names on the High Street to a Hampshire town.

Plans have just been given the green light for a Marks & Spencer food store in Eastleigh, which will create 50 jobs.

The 16,000 sq ft food store in the town centre is set to open in spring next year.

It is part of the company’s plans to expand its Simply Food network by opening a further 150 stores in the coming years.

The new store will sit on the Twyford Road car park in between the existing Lidl car park and a small car park serving the Network Rail depot on the other side of the track.

It is off Coles Close, on the roundabout with Twyford Road and Romsey Road, which is also used to access Lidl and will include 50 car parking spaces.

Bosses say they have responded to traffic concerns by putting the store further back from the road to allow any future highways improvement work anticipated by Hampshire County Council.

It will sit opposite the Church of the Resurrection, but Marks & Spencer planners say the front will be screened by trees.

The building is formed of three boxes of different heights – the largest has an upper mezzanine level and the lowest is a customers’ cafe.

Daily Echo: Materials and colours have been chosen to complement other new buildings in the area, in particular Eastleigh House, the borough council’s headquarters which staff moved into last March.

Some of the glass on the building will be coloured to reflect the stained glass windows of the church opposite and there will a green ‘living’ wall.

Final permission was given last month and Eastleigh Borough Council confirmed it expected building work to start in March.

Council leader Keith House said it was “great news” for the town adding to the cinema and restaurant development at the Swan Centre, the expansion of The Point theatre and the council’s headquarters in the town centre.

Tom Wilcox, Development Director, said: “This will not only be an added benefit to the residents of Eastleigh by offering them more choice, but also it will attract people from surrounding areas and be a real boost to the local economy.”