{"id":291065,"date":"2026-02-10T20:07:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T20:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/291065\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T20:07:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T20:07:11","slug":"translink-defends-absence-of-newspapers-for-sale-in-new-340m-grand-central-station-the-irish-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/291065\/","title":{"rendered":"Translink defends absence of newspapers for sale in new \u00a3340m Grand Central Station \u2013 The Irish News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Translink<\/a> has defended the absence of newspapers and magazines for sale in the \u00a3340 million Grand Central Station in Belfast<\/a>, stating its retail offering was the subject of a comprehensive marketing and tender process.<\/p>\n

Launched in September 2024 as the largest transport hub on the island of Ireland, the massive publicly-funded integrated rail and bus station is also thought to be one of the few major transport hubs in Europe where patrons cannot purchase print publications.<\/p>\n

The \u00a3340m hub replaced the much smaller Europa Bus Station, which featured two newsagents.<\/p>\n

As it stands, the only retail offering inside the new Grand Central Station is a Marks & Spencer<\/a> supermarket operated on a franchise basis by the SSP Group, which also operates the BrewDog pub and two Starbucks outlets within the station.<\/p>\n

\"Dozens<\/a>\"Translink<\/a><\/p>\n

In a departure from the 22 supermarkets M&S owns in Northern Ireland, the shop in Grand Central does not sell any newspapers or magazines.<\/p>\n

\"TheBelfast’s Grand Central Station opened in September 2024 at a cost of around \u00a3340 million. <\/p>\n

The nearest retailers selling publications are located around 300 metres away on Great Victoria Street.<\/p>\n

Both SSP and M&S declined to comment when contacted by The Irish News.<\/p>\n

SSP, which specialise in travel retail in airports and other major transport locations, operate around 50 M&S stores in Britain.<\/p>\n

The Grand Central Station store is its only M&S in Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s understood the travel retailer does not stock newspapers or magazines in any of its franchised M&S stores.<\/p>\n

Asked about the planning around the retail provision in the transport hub, a spokesperson for Translink said: \u201cOpportunities for retail outlets in Belfast Grand Central Station were widely advertised through a local letting agent; and a comprehensive marketing and tender process was completed.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough Translink does not determine the product lines of tenants, we would welcome the sale of newspapers and magazines and we continue to look at any suitable opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Translink has defended the absence of newspapers and magazines for sale in the \u00a3340 million Grand Central Station…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":291066,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[62788,72,61,60,139437,62789],"class_list":{"0":"post-291065","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-belfast-grand-central-station","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-marks-and-spencer","13":"tag-translink"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291065\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/291066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}