Supermarket chain Aldi launches public consultation on plans to build a new £9m store in Wirral, creating 40 jobs, as part of its £1.6bn UK expansion. Tony McDonough reports
Aldi is pushing on with plans to build a new store in Upton in Wirral, creating 40 jobs.
Located on Champions Business Park, the 21,600 sq ft outlet would cost £9m to build and is part of a £1.6bn UK-wide investment. Aldi says the development would regenerate a vacant brownfield site at the junction of Arrowe Brook Road and Arrowe Park Road. It has now launched a public consultation.
It has worked closely with Wirral Council’s highways officers to ensure the proposed store would integrate safely and efficiently into the local road network.
Access would be taken from Arrowe Brook Road and the design includes dedicated loading bays and safe pedestrian access points.
It will be displaying its vision for a new food store via a virtual consultation, running until Tuesday, September 23. Residents can find details about the plans by clicking here and using the online feedback form to have their say.
Stephen Jones, real estate manager for Aldi, said: “The site is ideally located with excellent accessibility for local residents, allowing us to bring our award-winning products to the area while redeveloping a strategic brownfield site.
“We’d like to encourage all those in the local area to let us know what they think about our plans and look forward to working with residents and stakeholders to deliver a new Aldi food store for the area.
“We’ve already received a strong level of support, for which we are very grateful. However, we are aware of some confusion around why we haven’t chosen the former Homebase site for our scheme.
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“Unfortunately, there is a restriction on the use of the Homebase unit for food retail, meaning it was not an option we were able to consider.”
This latest news comes as Aldi’s discount rival Lidl also looks to expand its store network in Merseyside. It proposes to build a new store on the site of a former Taskers outlet in Wavertree in south Liverpool, also creating 40 jobs.