More investment and jobs are on the way to Rochdale, with big name retailer Aldi officially starting construction of its third Rochdale store.
The discount giant submitted plans to build a new store in October last year, with councillors granting approval earlier this month. As well as creating 40 local jobs, the Mellor Street store, which will have 1,250 metres of trading space, will help breathe new life into the former Carter Brothers’ site, just past the Asda supermarket, which has been empty for almost a decade. The store is expected to be open before the end of the year.
Ambitious plans to rebuild the Lidl store on St Mary’s Gate are also set to de determined this month, with the retailer looking to add another 845 square metres of space to their existing 1,120 square metre store. If plans are approved, they will demolish the current store and build a bigger, better shop covering much of their old footprint and that of the now defunct blockbuster video shop. The new store would be closer to St Mary’s Gate, a key gateway into the town centre, and have an expanded on-site bakery and frozen foods section.
Lidl hopes to start demolition in the late spring, with the new store potentially opening as early as autumn this year. All current Lidl employees will be redeployed in the local area until the build is complete, with the new store expected to also create new job opportunities.
Elsewhere in the town centre, the new Morrisons Local is set to open this Monday (23 March). The opening of the store in the former Nile nightclub at Number 2 Smith Street has created 20 local jobs. Morrisons will join the growing ranks of new businesses opening in Rochdale in recent weeks, with Java Coffee also having opened its doors in the Transport Interchange at the weekend, providing four new jobs.
In the Exchange shopping centre, Costa Coffee has already served scores of customers since it opened on Tuesday 10 March, and brought in ten new jobs.
Leader of Rochdale Borough Council, Richard Farnell, said: “It feels like there’s a real momentum gathering in Rochdale at the moment and it shows that businesses clearly see the borough as having a promising future. Everytime a new business opens, job opportunities are created for local people, who then go and spend their money in the town centre and boost other businesses. Regeneration experts actually estimate that each additional employee in a town centre will bring an average of around £1,200 additional revenue into that town centre every year.”
20 Mar 2015