Budget supermarket Aldi submits plans for new £5m store in affluent Formby

Aldi has submitted a planning application to build a new £5million store in Formby and become the first budget supermarket chain to set up shop in the affluent Merseyside village.

The store would be built on a derelict brownfield site off Formby Bypass, to the east of the town, which used to be the location of a plant nursery that closed more than a decade ago.

Formby is home to Premier League footballers and Merseyside’s only Waitrose store. Tesco is the only other supermarket serving the 24,000 population in the coastal village, which only got its first McDonald’s in 2019.

But the village is expanding, with Sefton Council approving plans to build more than a thousand new houses over the past three years. A number of developments are currently springing up on the outskirts, most notably the Pinewoods Park development on the southern edge.

The new Aldi: The planning application was validated by Sefton Council on May 4 and a consultation period expires on June 9, 2023. The store would be built on land to the north of Moss Side in east Formby, along with a new access road and car parking. The site also has existing planning consent for residential development. The nearest Aldi for Formby residents is currently six miles away in Birkdale.

Bryn Richards, Aldi’s regional property director, said the consultation process revealed 85% support for the plans. He added the scheme would create around 40 local jobs and ‘enhance pedestrian and cycle connectivity from Formby to the site and surrounding countryside’.

Aldi - which has over 970 stores - is now the fourth largest supermarket in the UK, according to the latest data from Kantar.