DESPITE the announcement this week that Tesco will be closing 43 of its stores nationwide, the supermarket chain still intends to carry on with its plan to open a new one in Tavistock.

The company is in the process of converting the former Focus DIY store on Plymouth Road to a food store. However, since works on initial landscaping outside the main building started before Christmas, further progress appears to have stalled.

With such radical action by the company to recover from its economic problems there are concerns that works to the project have come to a halt. But a Tesco spokesperson confirmed this week that the Tavistock project will still be going ahead.

Tesco's chief executive officer Dave Lewis told the Times: 'We have carefully reviewed our planned new store developments across the country and it remains our intention to open our planned store in Tavistock.

'We continue to believe that the store will provide a valued service to the local community.

'The new store will provide a great shopping experience as well as bringing new jobs and investment to the area.'

It is going to be a 2,320 square metre superstore where a spokesman said that 'approximately 100 full and part-time jobs' would be created.

Tesco added that it intends to open its store in the 2015/16 financial year and it promises 'to keep the community closely updated on progress'.

The supermarket chain, which still accounts for more than a third of all grocery sales in the UK and has more than 3,300 stores in the UK, announced in October that it had overstated profits by £263-million.