Bosses at the Co-operative Group announced this week that they had bought Somerfield in a bid to cement the Co-op's position as Britain's fifth-biggest food retailer.

The deal has still to be ratified by the Office of Fair Trading because of competition concerns.

But, if it does go through, managers will face the dilemma of having both a Co-op AND a Somerfield in Newton Stewart. It is thought locally that this could lead to one or other of the stores having to be sold on again.

The Gazette this week quizzed the Co-op on what might happen.

But a spokesman for the firm would only say: "The transaction is conditional on receipt of appropriate regulatory approvals. We expect to file with the Office of Fair Trading this month and hear back in late September. Therefore, we cannot comment on individual locations until then."

One worker said: "This hasn't exactly come out of the blue – the takeover has been on the cards for a while. But it is unsettling, and you'd think it unlikely that the Co would want to keep two shops going in the same town."

In a move predicted by the Gazette last month, the owners of the 880-strong Somerfield chain this week agreed to sell it to the Co-operative Group for £1.58bn.

Although the Co-op plans to rebrand all the Somerfield stores it keeps, more than 100 of the outlets around the UK will probably have to be sold to larger rivals such as Tesco and Asda to satisfy the Office of Fair Trading.

Morrisons - along with upmarket chain Waitrose and frozen food grocer Iceland - have also been tipped as potential interested buyers of individual stores.

Somerfield can trace its history back over 130 years. In 1875 J H Mills opened a small grocery store in Bristol, which had grown to a 12-store chain by the turn of the century. In the 1950s they were rebranded as Gateway stores, with the Somerfield name first appearing in 1990.

It floated in 1996 and merged with Kwik Save two years later. After an ill-fated foray into home shopping with Somerfield Direct, it ran up large losses in 2000, and in 2005 it was sold to a consortium composed of the property tycoon Robert Tchenguiz, private equity firm Apax, Barclays Capital and Icelandic bank Kaupthing for £1.1bn.

The sale price is significantly less than the £2bn-£2.5bn the consortium had been hoping for when it put the grocery chain on the market in January. The Co-op has 2,200 food stores and is owned by its 2.5 million members.

Peter Marks, Chief Executive of The Co-operative Group, said: "This is good news for consumers and for competition in the grocery market, where we will create a stronger fifth player in food and a convenience store chain with unrivalled geographic reach."


Shopworkers' union Usdaw welcomed the news.

John Hannett, General Secretary, said: "The Co-op is a progressive employer, which endorses the consultation process with Usdaw as the best way of ensuring employees are given a real voice at work."