HILLINGDON is to get new housing instead of more Tescos after the supermarket giant yesterday sold off three sites in the borough as part of a £250m deal with a property company.

The sites, sold to European investment firm Meyer Bergman and earmarked for new housing developments, are on land at Hillingdon Circus, the Hillingdon Master Brewer site, and next to Hounslow bus garage near Heathrow Airport.

They are among 14 sites abandoned, 11 of which are in London, as part of Tesco’s strategy to turn around their fortunes after the 2014 accounting scandal.

Residents living near Hillingdon Circus said they were happy Tesco had sold up, to avoid increasing traffic in an already busy area.

Andrew Cunningham, 53, owner of Cunningham Butchers, said: “As an independent business obviously I’d prefer housing as it brings more customers and less competition, but it would also add to the area.

"Tesco would just create more unwanted traffic and give nothing back.”

Fellow butcher Mike Goff, 24, who lives nearby, said: “Can’t you turn it into a park? That’s what this area really needs.”

Next door, workers at Bill the Baker had similar concerns. Rita Pennington, 67, who lives in Hayes, said she felt a Tesco would be bad for the community people had worked hard to build on Long Lane.

“Tesco would kill it," she said. "Traffic is already terrible and having a superstore isn’t going to change that.

“They need to make the houses safe, and something too for the children. This bakery has been going since around 1930 and we want to keep that going.”

Some residents were wary of the effect proposed housing would have on the community feel. 

Rupa Gupta, 38, of Granville Road, said: “More people in the area could make it more congested, on the road and the streets.

"There is a nice community so I don’t know whether that would disappear.

“But I do feel though that Tesco really wouldn’t help all these local shops that have worked so hard to keep going.”

Tesco’s chief financial officer Alan Stewart told BBC Radio 4's Today programme yesterday: "We don't have the resource to put into these developments.

"The right decision for us and the business is not to go ahead."