And the retail giant has revealed the Commercial Road site, above, which it is hoped will be operational by the spring of 2010, could create up to 250 full and part-time jobs.

The ambitious proposals include a 25,000 sq ft food store and three non-food retail units on the land adjacent to the Lidl supermarket, and also the soon-to-be-vacant Borders College building.

Although the identity of the firms which will occupy the retail units has not been revealed, it is understood they will be popular high street names.

Paul Miller, Sainsbury's national development surveyor for Scotland, said: "We are excited to be able to unveil our plans for Hawick. I believe that Hawick, with its history, local produce and market town ambience is a perfect match for the quality food offered from Sainsbury's."

A public exhibition will be held on Friday, January 16 (1pm-7pm) and Saturday 17 (10am-2pm) to which all 9,500 local households in the town are being invited. Representatives of Sainsbury's and land owners Beaune Properties Ltd, as well as the project team, will be on hand to answer any questions and explain the plans in more detail.

A community newsletter will also be sent to all households in Hawick next week, with information and a freepost survey.

Mr Miller added: "Our reputation is built on our values of community partnership and a food-first ethos and we are looking forward to meeting local residents, their elected representatives and community organisations to discuss our proposals.

"We hope that these proposals will also be seen as a vote of confidence in the vibrancy of the Hawick community."

After the consultation a detailed planning application will be submitted to Scottish Borders Council by the end of March, although the proposed 7.8 hectares for the food store is already included in a development brief produced by the local authority.

After site clearance, it is expected to take between six and nine months to construct the store, which will have 294 car parking spaces.

And it has also been confirmed that the Hawick development would not be affected by events in Kelso where Sainsbury's and Tesco are engaged in a bitter battle to host the town's first supermarket.