Aldi plans North Wales store

Plans have been submitted to Gwynedd Council for a nearly 20,000 sq ft discount supermarket less than a mile east of Pwllheli town centre.

Aldi wants to build the store on a 4.8-acre plot off Caernarfon Road that is currently being used for animal grazing.

The proposals include 114 car parking spaces. Among that number would be 10 parent and child spaces and eight disabled spaces. There would also be four electric vehicle charging spaces, with infrastructure in place to grow that number by 20.

To encourage sustainable travel access, the plans also have 14 cycle parking spaces. A new bus stop would be introduced opposite the Aldi on Caernarfon Road, connected to the store via a proposed zebra crossing.

If approved, the application would see the speed limit around that section of Caernarfon Road reduced from 50mph to 30mph.

Designed by The Harris Partnership, the store would be constructed with sustainability in mind including waste heat from the shop’s refrigeration system being re-used to heat the retail area. There would also be 200 solar panels on the roof of the store to provide electricity for the supermarket.

The site of the proposed store had been allocated for housing within the Anglesey and Gwynedd Joint Local Development Plan 2011-2026. However, the site was found to not be viable for housing according to a viability statement by JLL, who also acted as the planning consultant for the project.

JLL noted that the site was marketed by Legat Owen starting in November 2020 and had received no serious interest. A local registered provider had looked at the site but found it was not feasible for the provider to develop because of its slop, an open land culvert that crosses the land, and the need for deep foundations because of ground conditions. The site also has a lack of porosity that the housing provider said would be expensive to overcome and was unlikely to have mains gas.

In addition to JLL and The Harris Partnership, the project team for Aldi includes Cameron Rose Associates as transport consultant, Earth Environmental as geo-environmental consultant, WaterCo as flood consequences consultant, and SWF Consulting as drainage consultant.

Spectrum Acoustics is the noise impact consultant for the project, while ACS Consulting is the arboricultural consultant. BWB Consulting is providing air quality expertise. CTM Management is in charge of the construction management plan. Cambrian Ecology is the ecology consultant.

The application’s reference number with Gwynedd Council is C22/0969/45/LL. A consultation on the project was held in July.