TESCO has rubbished rumours it is set to close a supermarket in Barrow.

Employees voiced concerns last week that they had heard the Metro store in Flass Lane at Roose was set to close within 18 months.

But today bosses at the retail giant said the rumours were categorically wrong.

A Tesco spokesman said: “The rumours are not correct.

“We want to reassure our customers and colleagues, we are not closing our Barrow Metro store and have no plans to do so.”

The Mail contacted Tesco last Monday to ask the grocery giant to respond to the rumours and concerns raised by employees and shoppers.

A Tesco employee who works at a Barrow store said to The Mail last week: “The team leaders, community champion... have already been made redundant and some other staff have been given the option of moving to other stores.

“We’ve heard a property developer is looking to buy the site in Flass Lane to turn it into houses.”

One worker at the Roose Tesco Metro store said: “We’ve been told it’ll be closed within 18 months.”

The rumours follow Tesco announcing plans in August they were to cut 4,500 jobs, with Metro stores set to be the hardest hit by redundancies.

Tesco has three Metro stores in the county – two in Barrow and another in Carlisle.

The company said in a statement in August: “The Metro format was originally designed for larger, weekly shops, but today nearly 70 per cent of customers use them as convenience stores, buying food for that day.”