Five Tesco stores to create 850 jobs

More than 850 jobs will be created in Powys over the next few years with the opening of five new Tesco stores, the supermarket chain has today revealed.

The store giant today said plans were under way to open supermarkets in Newtown, Welshpool, Machynlleth, Llandrindod Wells and Ystradgynlais.

Felix Gummer, Tesco spokesman, said: "Proposals for all five of the stores are at very different stages.

"We're hoping work on the Newtown development will start in the next few months but work to clear the site at Llandrindod Wells has already started.

"We are still going through the planning stages for Welshpool and full permission hasn't been granted yet but all I can say is watch this space."

He said plans for the Machynlleth site were still in the very "early stages" and no plans had yet been submitted.

"We're hoping to hold a series of public consultations in Machynlleth very shortly to discuss the plans and we have just submitted a planning application for the Ystradgynlais development," he added.

About 210 jobs would be created at Newtown, 150 at Welshpool, 140 at Machynlleth, 180 at Llandrindod Wells and 180 at Ystradgynlais.

Mr Gummer said it was never Tesco's intention to put stores in all the major towns in Powys but it has just worked out that way.

"When we carried out our surveys we noticed there was a big niche in the market because a lot of residents were shopping outside their towns," he said.

"We found that in Machynlleth only 16.9 per cent of its residents do their big food shop in the town, the remaining 83.1 per cent shop elsewhere."