A supermarket giant has made a dramatic turnaround and decided not to sell up.

Three of the Somerfield stores, one in Newland's Spring, Chelmsford, and two in Clacton, are set to stay open after no suitable buyers were found for them.

Around 140 of the supermarket chain's bigger stores across the country were put up for sale following a company review last year.

Louisa Graveney, of Somerfield, said: "We haven't received any suitable offers and, because the Chelmsford and Clacton stores were so good, we decided to carry on trading them as Somerfield.

"We decided to go back to our roots and go back to the local store approach."

She added: "It was always our intention that if we couldn't find any suitable buyers we would keep the stores open because they do so well."

Chelmsford's second shop, in Great Baddow, was spared in the changes because it was one of the smaller High Street stores the company wanted to concentrate on.

A spokesperson for the Chelmsford's Newland Spring store said: "All the staff would like to thank all of our shoppers for their continued custom and look forward to serving them in the future."

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