Lidl has 50 Scottish sites on location ‘wish list’
Lidl has outlined 50 locations in Scotland where it wants to build new stores or relocate existing ones to larger sites as the march of the discount supermarket operators continues.
Publishing its latest expansion “wish list”, the German-owned chain said it was eyeing town centre, edge-of-town, retail park and “metropolitan” locations across the country. Those include a dozen potential locations in and around Edinburgh, five in Glasgow and two each in Aberdeen, Cumbernauld, Dunfermline and Paisley.
It comes just a week after arch-rival Aldi, which is also German-owned, released a target list as it looks to open a further 20 stores in Scotland.
Lidl’s ever-growing estate spans the nation, with stores in communities from Kirkwall in the north to Stranraer in the south.
Since 2019, the chain has celebrated the opening of its 100th Scottish store, in Cowdenbeath, and the unveiling of its regional distribution site in Eurocentral, which is lidl’s largest in Britain.
Ross Millar, the retailer’s regional director for Scotland, said: “We want to continue to reach more shoppers across Scotland and our site requirements brochure is a testament of that.
“There are towns that will be new for Lidl, and in some places, the potential to even double our sites.”
As part of its ongoing plans, the firm has committed to investing £1.3 billion in its store expansion across Britain over 2021 and 2022.
Aldi, which now has 96 stores in Scotland and more than 900 across the UK, said last week that it was looking for freehold town and city centre or edge-of-centre sites.