BIDDING for a new supermarket operator in Dursley will start next month, it was revealed this week.

Last month it was announced by Stroud District Council that Tesco had substantially lowered its offer for the Castle Street site and in order to get the best deal for the town, remarketing could be the only option.

At Dursley Town Council meeting on Tuesday a written statement from Cllr Hilary Fowles, a district councillor for the town, revealed that officers were working on starting the process of remarketing in September.

"There has been a lot of talk about substituting other kinds of store, but the bottom line is that a supermarket is still preferred," Cllr Fowles said in her letter.

"This is because it is hard to know what other kind of store could attract the same number of people as a supermarket. To keep our small shops open we need to attract more people. The only store guaranteed to attract large numbers of people in a small town is a supermarket with linked trips to the smaller shops, as happens in many other towns we visited before making the original decision."

It is widely thought that Dursley's ability to compete with other towns would be enhanced by the construction of a supermarket and the sale of the land would lead to other regeneration projects including a new fire station, a youth centre and education centre.

Asda has already thrown their hat into the ring as a potential bidder in the remarketing process. The bottom-slapping supermarket chain was beaten off by Tesco when the site was remarketed last year.

"We are still very interested in coming to Dursley," said Asda's property communications manager Claire Irvine.

"We are committed to having a store in the town and having it on the original site. We are in the process of having dialogue with the vendors agent and we will be taking it from there."

Tesco corporate affairs manager Andrew Slight confirmed that his company was also still interested in bringing a supermarket to Dursley, despite having recently bought Co-op store in Cam.

Cllr Dennis Andrewartha, Gloucestershire County Council's representative for Cam and Dursley (Lib Dem), said he was confident a supermarket would come to the town.

"The county council are reasonably confident that the regeneration of Dursley will be back on track in the near future. I think we can all have a bit of confidence in this."