It has just been revealed that Tesco's 1,000 acres of undeveloped areas that were bought during the 1990's and early 2000's originally to develop hypermarkets, are going to have 4,000 new homes built on them instead.

In 2013 Tesco stated that the areas were not going to be developed and quoted that their value had dropped by £800 million.

It is estimated that Tesco owns 310 undeveloped sites across Britain, which could be used to build 15,000 homes.

As reported by Property Week, the company is now planning to build 4,000 new homes by 2017. In total the supermarket chain owns 310 undeveloped sites which if built on could "house" 15,000 homes.

It has yet to decide whether it will either use its own developer Spenhill (Tesco owned) and build the homes itself or sell them to property developers. Tesco at present boasts a £20 billion property portfolio.

 

A Tesco spokesman stated: ‘We are currently working on plans for over 4,000 homes across the UK, either by building them ourselves or selling our sites to housing developers.

 

‘In places where we have already delivered housing schemes, for example in Faversham or Highams Park, the feedback from local communities and councils has been very positive. We are pleased to be bringing new investment to communities up and down the country and playing our part in meeting local housing needs over the coming years.’

Tesco is experiencing its lowest trading result for twenty years, over the last three months sales themselves have dropped by 3.8%.

The company said: ‘As we have previously announced, in response to changing customer shopping habits we have decided to reduce the amount of new store space we build each year, building fewer large stores.

‘Where we no longer intend  to develop sites, we sell them,  lease them or develop them  for housing.’