TESCO last night pledged its future to Huddersfield.

The retail giant said it remained committed to building new stores in Huddersfield and Holmfirth – after reports that it is scrapping more than 100 major store developments.

Tesco said it would put more focus on online shopping as the UK’s biggest supermarket chain reported its first annual profits fall in almost 20 years.

But a Tesco spokesman said that it was committed to plans for a new superstore on the site of Huddersfield sports centre – to replace its existing Viaduct Street store.

And he said Tesco was still appealing a decision to refuse permission for a store at Holmfirth, which it would “very much like to build”.

He said plans for a store on the site of the empty Grey Horse pub at Birchencliffe were “still on the cards” once the firm’s planners were ready to submit a new application after councillors rejected initial plans last November.

Kirklees Council staff have started preparatory work on the car park at Springwood, which is destined to be the site for the new sports centre.

Once that is built, the existing centre will be demolished and the site cleared for a new Tesco store.

In Holmfirth, Tesco has been battling for years to try and get permission for a store on the former Midlothian Garage site in New Mill Road.

Tesco’s pledge to press on came as the company posted a 51.5% fall in annual profits to £1.96bn.

Tesco said it had been hit by slowing sales – partly due to the horse meat scandal.

It also faced a hefty £804m write-down from the decision to scrap plans for more than 100 major stores and a £1.2bn hit from its failed foray in America.

Tesco confirmed that plans to sell-off its Fresh & Easy business in the USA were “well advanced” with interest from buyers for all or parts of the business.

Analysts at stockbroker Panmure Gordon said the decision to scale-down store development in favour of online was a “welcome shift in strategy”.

Tesco’s plans mean that big Tesco Extra developments have been pulled, including ones for sites in Leeds and Brough, North Yorkshire.

Philip Clarke, chief executive at Tesco, said: “The large stores we have are great and we are doing a lot of work to make them more vibrant and relevant for today’s customers.

“But we won’t need many more of them because growth in future will be multi-channel – a combination of big stores, local convenience stores and online.”

He said the financial impact of the group’s decision was as a result of land being bought at the height of the property boom more than five or 10 years ago.

“That is before the 2008 financial crisis, before the iPhone, social media, tablet computers, before we knew how profoundly technology would change both how we and our customers live and shop,” he added.

The group reduced store expansion by 40% in the year to the end of February, but opened 120 Tesco Expresses and 26 One Stop outlets.

It said it plans to continue focusing new space on convenience stores over the year ahead.

Tesco said online sales reached £3bn after rising 13% in the year to February 23.

UK like-for-like sales fell by 0.4% excluding VAT and fuel over the year, despite buoyant Christmas trading.