Expansion plans in the pipeline for Queensferry Lidl?

We had a couple of tweets sent to us about work being carried out in the car park close to the entrance of Lidl in Queensferry the other day.

A drilling rig was seen on the car park boring holes into the tarmac, leaving many wondering if fracking had arrived in Deeside.

Alas no, Lidl’s PR people told us today:

“As part of Lidl UK’s ongoing expansion plans we are always looking at different ways to improve our existing stores. The works pictured is our engineers conducting ground investigations. The enquiry was purely exploratory and we have no set plans in place at this stage.”

With rival German supermarket chain Aldi looking to occupy the vacant Somerfield site in Connah’s Quay, Lidl will be desperate to defend its position in Deeside as the discount supermarket giants go ‘toe to toe’ in the race to expand, both have ambitious growth plans and are outpacing the UK’s “big four” supermarkets in terms of growth.

Aldi and Lidl already have 53 new UK developments in the pipeline between them, more than five times the nine projects Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons and Asda have combined, the 53 includes two new Aldi stores for Flintshire in Buckley and Broughton.

Lidl could expand their store in Queensferry with relative ease however, one well placed ‘source’ did say to us yesterday he believed Lidl were also looking at the possibility of taking over the neighbouring B&Q site, which will become vacant in January after the Queensferry DIY shuts its doors for the final time as parent group Kingfisher looks to downsize the number of UK stores it operates.

One person who doesn’t appear to be particularly pleased with another German discount supermarket ‘coming over here and selling us cheap food’ is UKIP’s Deeside parliamentary candidate Blair Smillie, in a video posted on YouTube today, Smillie claims the local council, rather than Aldi, want to turn the site back into a supermarket.

A group of ‘local mums’ have told him they would prefer a ‘youth’ centre in the old Somerfield site rather than a global food retailer with the 40 or so jobs that would bring locally. Why Connah’s Quay can’t have both is perhaps a question only Mr Smillie can answer.

Anyway, here he is to explain. 

Picture credit @Mikey_Rowe