GAZETTE & HERALD: A FORMER director of J Lyons, which used to own the corner tea houses, has made a complaint to the environmental health department after walking into Sainsbury in Calne.

Michael Murphy, 66, from London Road in Marlborough, was on business in Calne and decided to shop at Sainsbury rather than Waitrose, his usual supermarket.

The retired marketing director of J Lyons' bakery division said he could not believe the state of the store.

Mr Murphy described the Sainsbury store as "filthy" and "disgusting".

He said: "I used to work in the food industry and the place was just disgusting.

"A lot of the shelves were not full and wherever you looked behind the gap there was lots of dust and dirt and I have never seen anything quite so disgusting.

"The glass at the front of the store has got a large faade and it's cracked and smoked over but the worst thing is it's streaked with dirt of dry condensation.

"Practically every place I looked there was dirt on the shelves and stains and dust marks and old bits of papers with grease marks.

"When I went to get some ice cream out of the frozen cupboards, my hand touched the handle and it was like going into a French loo and, even when I got to the checkouts, the checkouts were filthy."

However, Sainsbury's management has denied there is a problem with the store's cleanliness.

Mr Murphy said he showed the manager the dirt but was not offered an apology.

Mr Murphy said: "I took him round and showed him five places where there was dirt. He didn't say anything."

Before working for Lyons Mr Murphy held the post of international food and drink development manager for Beechams (now GlaxoSmithKline), manufacturer of soft drinks such as Ribena.

He said: "I have marketed food in India and Malaya and I cannot say all their stores have been any cleaner but it's the filthiest superstore I have ever seen in Britain."

A Sainsbury spokesman said this sort of complaint is taken very seriously.

He said: "The cleanliness of our stores is very important to us and we can assure customers of our Calne store that it is cleaned regularly and reaches the high standards that we require of all our stores."

This issue comes at a time when Sainsbury is looking to extend its Calne store.

A spokesman for North Wiltshire District Council confirmed the environmental health department had received a complaint and said yesterday: "I can confirm that the officer investigating is due to visit the store today."