New Lidl stores Sheffield: Supermarket giant issues update on Chapeltown branch opening

Fit-out works at the retail giant’s new supermarket on Lane End in Chapeltown, Sheffield, have begun and are expected to take around five months, with the shop scheduled to open next spring.

Lidl said the Chapeltown store would include an in-store bakery, a customer toilet with baby changing facilities, and ‘ample’ parking for cars and bicycles, and would create around 40 jobs.

A spokesperson for Lidl GB said: “There’s been much anticipation for this new Lidl store and it’s great that we are now able to enter the next stages of development. We are extremely grateful for all the support that we have received so far and would like to thank everyone for their patience and understanding whilst we enter this next phase.”

They also said an announcement was due with full details of another new store at the old Sports Direct unit on High Street, Sheffield.

A third new Lidl is proposed on Eyre Street at the site of the former Staples and Mothercare stores beside the ring road, just off the bottom of The Moor.

The planning application, which has yet to be considered by Sheffield Council, has faced opposition from environmental campaigners who claim there is too little recognition of the Porter Brook running beneath and alongside the plot.

All three new supermarkets form part of the firm’s major expansion plans, with Lidl having said it is investing £1.3 billion across the UK in 2021 and 2022 and is now the country’s sixth largest supermarket chain, with more than 935 stores across England, Scotland and Wales.

The new Lidl at Eyre Street would be across the road from an existing Aldi store.

Aldi also has big expansion plans, which include a new store at Meadowhall, though it recently put its Fitzwilliam Road branch in Rotherham up for sale for £1.5 million.

Aldi is just ahead of Lidl in the table of the UK’s biggest supermarket brands, with more than 960 stores.

It hopes to stay in front, with plans to open 100 new stores across the UK over the next two years and invest £1.3bn by 2023.