AN official announcement on plans to build a Tesco supermarket on the Northgate site in Bridgwater is not expected to materialise until “early next year”, a Sedgemoor District Council spokesperson has told the Mercury.

Back in September the council said that it hoped that a conclusion would be reached “before the end of the calendar year” and that it “will not enter into any further comment or speculation”.

Now a special meeting of the full council has been arranged for December 17 to explain the situation on the Northgate site which is jointly owned by Sedgemoor District Council and Somerset County Council.

In a fresh statement, a spokesperson for Sedgemoor District Council said: “Discussions are on-going but hopefully will be concluded between the three parties by early next year.

“Members are being given an update as to the progress of the discussions only and the report will be exempt because it is in relation to commercially sensitive and legally privileged information.”

On a national level Tesco has endured a rocky time financially after it announced that its profits have been overstated by £263million, and now the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) is carrying out an investigation into the supermarket giant’s accounting practices.

Tesco shares have now fallen by around 50% since the start of 2014, seeing more than £13 billion wiped off the value of the company.

Bob Cuddlipp, member of the local campaign group Bridgwater Forward, said he thinks this means that Tesco will not build a supermarket on the Northgate site.

He said: “I don’t think they will go ahead given the financial position the they find themselves in and with the competition we already have in Bridgwater I think they have decided it’s not viable and I think that is why they have not signed the S106 agreement.”