It has, however, come too late to salvage a planned £41 million supermarket that would have been built on the former Perth Mart site on Crieff Road, The Courier has reported.

In March, Tesco lodged a challenge at the Court of Session in Edinburgh against a decision by Perth and Kinross Council to amend a planning agreement which would have allowed Sainsbury’s to go ahead with the shop and create about 450 jobs.

This legal appeal effectively prevented Sainsbury’s from starting work and was one of the reasons the company gave for pulling out in August.

The situation was then compounded two weeks ago when Perth City West, the owners of the Crieff Road site, had gone into administration.

The legal battle with the council has now finally been resolved with Lord Glennie rejecting Tesco’s challenge.

The matter of expenses is still to be decided but could run into thousands of pounds for Tesco.

A Perth and Kinross Council spokesman said: “We are pleased that Lord Glennie has ruled that we acted lawfully in the way that we dealt with the removal of the trading restriction in a planning agreement that we had entered into with Sainsbury’s.”

A Tesco spokesman said it was disappointed at the decision. Sainsbury’s did not wish to comment.