THE opening of a new Marks & Spencer Simply Food store in Stadhampton is expected to bring 15 jobs to the local area.

The BP petrol station reopened with the new store in Thame Road this morning.

The joint BP and M&S development will offer motorists the usual range of M&S food alongside BP’s own Wild Bean Café drinks and hot food.

The garage which had previously included a Budgens store, had been what is known as a 'dealer site', where another company owns the station but BP sell them the petrol under the BP logo.

However, BP has since bought the site and brought it into it's own network spending £750,000 on the redevelopment.

The new service station will employ around 20 staff in total.

The store also includes car parking, a toilet accessible to disabled people, and a baby changing-room.

BP operations manager, Mark Witham, said: “The new store and introduction of the M&S Simply Food range means we have been able to create a number of new jobs for the local area.

“It will offer a selected range of Marks & Spencer’s high quality fresh, innovative food alongside the best of BP fuels and our very own Wild Bean Café.”

The first BP M&S Simply Food store was opened in 2005 at BP Hammersmith in London. There are now more than 230 in the UK.