A sign at a closed Co-op food store has sparked confusion among residents frustrated by the six month delay in reopening the shop.

Epsom resident Peter Mugridge contacted us last week after seeing a sign inside the store in Upper High Street.

He said: "Work only started on replacing the floor about three to four weeks ago.

"There’s a sign been put up inside in the store, visible through the doorway, which says ‘welcome to Alldays’.

"Has Co-op quietly sold the store off?"

But today a spokesman for the company said the old sign must have been left over from when the store was brought from Alldays and apologised for further delays in reopening.

The store, shut on September 20, 2012, when a sign was displayed announcing it had closed due to "unforeseen circumstances".

Your Local Guardian: The Co-op store in Upper High Street, Epsom, has been shut since September 20

In October, a Co-op spokeswoman said the closure was only temporary and a normal service would resume as soon as building work had been completed.

Five months later the spokeswoman said work on the site was "taking longer than initially anticipated" due to major structural defects with the floor being found and said the store would re-open in April.

But today a spokeswoman said the store will not now reopen until the end of May. 

She said: "Contractors are currently on site and it is a considerable piece of work that is unfortunately taking longer than was originally anticipated.

"We would like to apologise to our customers for any inconvenience and to reassure them that we are working very hard to complete the repairs and get their local Co-op store back open.

"In the meantime, the Co-op store on Station Approach is open, as usual, from 7am until 10pm."

She added: "In terms of the Alldays sign, the store used to be an Alldays before the Co-op took it over so I imagine the resident has just spied an old sign that we have found during the course of the work."