The woman who led the campaign for Marlborough to have a second supermarket, Lisa Farrell, is being invited to the opening of Tesco on Salisbury Road business park on Monday.

Mrs Farrell, 49, of Five Stiles Road, launched the Marlborough Matters campaign in March 2009 when the closure of M&S Simply Food left the town with just one supermarket, Waitrose.

The campaigners wrote to every supermarket chain to try to attract a budget store to the town and when Tesco showed a positive response its members were jubilant.

Supporters of the campaign packed out the debating chamber at the Wiltshire Council offices in Devizes to the extent that an ante-room had to be opened up to get everyone in.

The cheer which went up when chairman Coun Philip Brown announced that permission was being granted was heard outside in the car park.

This week Mrs Farrell, who has a grown-up son, said: “Persuading Tesco to come to Marlborough was a victory for all the ordinary people who need a budget supermarket.

“It was for them that a group of us started the campaign and we were all thrilled when Tesco said they would consider coming to Marlborough.”

At 10am on Monday the Mayor Andrew Ross and Mrs Farrell, who works as a school catering manager, will cut a ribbon to declare the store officially open.

Store manager Jo Greenwood with present Coun Ross with a £1,000 donation for his Mayor’s Fund towards the town’s sports clubs and there will be glasses of bubbly, orange juice and cake for the first customers.

The new store, which will be about the same size as Tesco at Hungerford, will open 6am– midnight Monday–Saturday and 10am–4pm on Sundays.