Supermarket giant Tesco is attempting to bypass a local planning authority in its quest for a massive retail village.

Despite several days of negotiations with Glasgow City Council, Tesco is appealing directly to the Scottish Executive to make a decision on its proposal for a 7500 sq m superstore and 915 flats in the city's Partick area.

The retailer is known to be exasperated with the city council, accusing it of dragging its heels over the planning application. It believes the length of time taken by the authority to assess the bid is tantamount to a refusal.

The council is currently awaiting the results of an air quality study in the Dumbarton Road and Byres Road areas before sending the bid to committee. That is expected to happen in late summer.

Sources within the authority, while expecting the move for some time, have branded it as a posturing attempt by Tesco to force the council's hand, while campaigners against the scheme accused the company of doing little to better public relations.

Although the move is unusual, it is not unknown for developers to ask ministers to move on schemes which they believe are being held up by local authorities for more than two months.

As the city council will financially benefit from the scheme and given the weight of objections, the application was always going to be laid before ministers for final approval or rejection.

A senior source within the authority said: "Tesco believes there are people intent on holding this up. They may be right in some instances. Some officials and politicians may sympathise with the anti-Tesco campaign in the west end.

"But Tesco haven't helped themselves by presenting the council with the cheapest and nastiest structure they can throw together and delaying in presenting us with a workable proposal."

The move is the latest in a long and twisted saga which has brought the politics of retail into sharp focus in Scotland.

On the back of much of the furore over the Partick application, Tesco has scaled down its original proposal and submitted a fall-back bid should plan A fail.

Although Tesco can legitimately appeal to the executive, it is understood ministers are inclined towards allowing the due process to take its course.

The latest manoeuvre to advance the scheme has been met with disquiet among campaigners and objectors.

Aileen Colleran, Labour councillor for Partick and a senior figure within the city council's ruling administration, said: "I'm surprised they've chosen to bypass the council's decision making powers in this respect. If they were sure of the merits of the plans then I would have hoped they would allow due process to take place.

"Appealing to the executive won't speed things up and I hope the minister will look carefully at the planning grounds for refusal that the campaigners have put forward. I still maintain this is the wrong site for a development of this size and hope common sense will prevail.

The STOP (Stop Tesco Owning Partick) group said that it was "outraged" over what it described as "bullying tactics" by Tesco.

Spokesman Gordon Bickerton said: "They think they can just flex their corporate muscle and everyone will jump to their tune. There is a process which has to be gone through and Tesco want to bypass that, which is typical of their arrogance."

Last night a city council spokesman said: "There have been delays to the council receiving the full package of information from Tesco to address the significant changes to their original planning application.

"However, any developer is entitled to approach the executive. We will now await the response from the executive that will determine how the matter is progressed from here."

No-one from Tesco was available for comment.