The regeneration of Caversham's precinct will go ahead despite Waitrose pulling out at the final hour. 

As exclusively revealed by The Reading Chronicle on Monday the supermarket said it was not going to be expanding its store into the redevelopment that has been two years in the making.

The supermarket, with headquarters in Bracknell, announced it was not going to expand into the unit that is currently Superdrug while they moved to another unit in the development.

A spokesman for Waitrose cited "market forces" and the way people shopped as reasons why it was set to withdraw from the redevelpoment of St Martin's Precinct.

However, James Armstrong, said they were going to continue trading from the current store.

Today developers Hermes Investment Management said they were still committed to redeveloping part of the site on Church Road, Caversham.

Matthew Chillingworth, Asset Manager, said: "We are of course disappointed that for commercial reasons Waitrose has chosen not to extend their store at this time, although they will remain a tenant at the St Martin's Centre in Caversham.

"At present, we are liaising closely with the Council and other stakeholders on the likely implications to the wider regeneration of the shopping centre. 

"However, we would like to reassure the local community that we still intend to carry out improvement works to the centre, in line with the approved plans.

"We hope to make a further statement in due course on exactly which elements of the approved plans will be impacted."

It was believed the plans to create apartments above a Pizza Express opposite the Tesco petrol station were still going to go ahead.

Deputy Leader of Reading Borough Council, Tony Page, said he found Waitrose's reason for pulling out of the redevlopment "incredulous" as people had been changing the way they shopped for a number of years.