A MAJOR high street store set for a Hampshire town is to be delayed six months.

The new Marks & Spencer food store for Eastleigh, which is set to create 50 jobs, was expected to open in spring next year but work is still yet to begin.

Now councillors have been told it will not be complete until October 2016 – more than a year after retail bosses had originally planned.

Tory opposition councillor Judith Grajewski questioned council leader Cllr Keith House about the delay and whether he could guarantee that the store, set for the Twyford Road car park off a roundabout, would definitely be coming to Eastleigh.

Cllr House said that the delays had been down to extended negotiations with Network Rail on selling off the land and that this had not been the first project where there had been delays in negotiations with the firm with a two year delay on a project in Netley.

“We have had to do a complex package of work with Network Rail to get Network Rail to release the site for development – that took longer than expected,” he said.

He said “you can never give a guarantee” but did say the council expected building work to start in February and be complete by October 2016.

The store is planned to sit in between the existing Lidl car park and a small car park serving the Network Rail depot on the other side of the track.

When the announcement was made in April 2014 Marks & Spencer initially said it hoped to open the store in early 2015.

But plans were not given the go ahead by the Eastleigh Local Area Committee until February this year with work then expected to start a month or so later.

It is part of the company’s plans to expand its Simply Food network with 150 such stores in the coming years.

Formed from three boxes of different heights, the 16,000ft shop will be off Coles Close, on the roundabout with Twyford Road and Romsey Road using the same access as Lidl. It will have 50 car parking spaces.

Residents had raised concerns about increased traffic but retail bosses said they had moved the store back further from the road to allow for highways improvements.

Currently, the nearest Marks & Spencer store to Eastleigh is the superstore in Hedge End.

A spokesperson for M&S said: “We are committed to bringing an exciting new M&S foodhall to Eastleigh.

“Further details will be made available as plans for the new store progress.”

Network Rail had not responded as the Daily Echo went to press.