by Chris Harris
In December 2025 an application by Lidl to build a new superstore on the old Caffyns site was turned down. That same month, an application from Aldi to expand its store, literally a stone’s throw away from the proposed Lidl site, was approved. Was this a coincidence or the dark arts?
The fascinating question hanging over the supermarket battle in Lewes. Did Aldi simply happen to decide to expand at almost exactly the same time Lidl was attempting to move in next door — or did circumstances give Aldi the opportunity to make an exceptionally smart commercial move?
Again, let’s be absolutely clear: there is no evidence of anything improper, and no evidence that Aldi’s expansion was deliberately conceived to prevent Lidl opening. It could simply be coincidence. The expansion of Aldi may well have been discussed and suggested well before the Lidl plan came into public knowledge; even so, the optics and the coincidence are well worth a blog!
The chronology is intriguing, particularly because we now know that the first public indication of a new foodstore on the Caffyns site appeared considerably earlier than Lidl’s full planning application. The full application was received in May. But a screening application was received on 21 February 2025.
On that date an environmental screening application was received and validated for the Caffyns site describing the proposed development as a Class E(a) foodstore. In other words, months before Lidl’s full application appeared, it was publicly visible through the planning system that somebody was seriously contemplating a supermarket on the site.
Lidl wasn’t merely testing the water. It had agreed a £4.65 million deal for the Caffyns site on Brooks Road and proposed demolishing the existing buildings and constructing a new supermarket virtually next door to Aldi.
The timelines are below:
LIDL — SDNP/25/01871/FUL
21 February 2025 — Screening application for proposed foodstore on Caffyns site
1 May 2025 — Full planning application received
7 May 2025 — Full application validated
11 December 2025 — Planning Committee
12 December 2025 — REFUSED
ALDI — SDNP/25/02551/FUL
June 2025 — Expansion application enters planning process
13 November 2025 — Planning Committee
December 2025 — APPROVED
So the first public indication of a proposed foodstore on the Caffyns site was the screening application on 21 February 2025. Aldi’s expansion application was validated on 19 June 2025 — 118 days later, just under four months. Lidl’s full application was received on 1 May, meaning Aldi’s application followed 49 days later.
Is that enough time for Aldi to prepare a response? For a company of Aldi’s size, with professional planning consultants, architects, highways specialists and property advisers available to it, 43 days is certainly enough time to progress, accelerate or finalise a planning proposal if the basic idea and land opportunity already existed.
What we cannot know is when Aldi actually started preparing its expansion. It may have begun long before Lidl appeared. Equally, discovering that its closest discount-supermarket rival intended to open next door would provide an entirely understandable commercial reason to prioritise an expansion already being contemplated.
Either way, the timing was extraordinarily helpful to Aldi. Lidl was effectively saying: Lewes can accommodate another discount supermarket. Aldi’s application effectively answered: We’re proposing to make the discount supermarket already here bigger.
Then Aldi Overtakes Lidl
Lidl’s application had problems of its own, which helps explain why it wasn’t simply approved during the summer. Friends of Lewes objected over design, pedestrian access, traffic, flooding, sustainability and, significantly, questioned the need for a fourth supermarket immediately alongside Tesco and Aldi. That delay proved important because Aldi’s later application was able to catch up.
By August something particularly interesting had happened. Friends of Lewes, while still expressing concern about an over-provision of supermarkets and additional traffic, explicitly concluded that expanding the existing Aldi was a better option than building the proposed Lidl.
That doesn’t demonstrate that Aldi engineered anything. It does, however, demonstrate the effect that having the two competing proposals in the planning system could have on the debate.
Aldi reached the Planning Committee on 13 November. Lidl didn’t reach committee until 11 December and was refused the following day. Aldi’s expansion subsequently received approval. So although Lidl entered the race first, Aldi effectively overtook it. That timing matters because Aldi’s proposal was inherently easier to progress than Lidl’s. Aldi was seeking to enlarge an existing supermarket on an established retail site, whereas Lidl was proposing demolition and an entirely new supermarket development, bringing wider questions over design, access, highways, flooding and the impact of a new building at an important gateway into Lewes. Those issues were already attracting objections to Lidl.
And by the time planners were considering Lidl, the landscape was rather different from February or May. The question was no longer simply whether Lewes should have another discount supermarket. There was now an alternative proposition sitting alongside it: enlarge the Aldi already operating there.
Coincidence — Or an Exceptionally Smart Commercial Move?
Planning authorities cannot refuse Lidl simply because Aldi doesn’t want another competitor. Protecting an existing supermarket from competition isn’t what the planning system is for. Lidl had to succeed or fail on legitimate planning considerations. Nor can we say that Aldi devised its expansion specifically as a counter to Lidl. There is no evidence proving that, and it would be unfair to Aldi to present speculation as fact.
But we can reasonably ask whether Lidl’s arrival changed the commercial urgency surrounding Aldi’s own plans. Aldi had potentially been able to see since February that a supermarket was being proposed next door. Lidl’s full application followed in May. Aldi’s expansion application followed shortly afterwards.
For a sophisticated national retailer supported by professional property and planning teams, that was plenty of time to respond commercially and bring forward its own case, particularly if expansion was already an available option. Whatever Aldi’s motivation, the eventual outcome could hardly have been better for it.
Lidl committed to a multimillion-pound site beside its closest discount-supermarket competitor. Aldi proposed making its existing store bigger. Aldi reached committee first. Local opinion emerged explicitly preferring the Aldi expansion to the new Lidl. Lidl was refused, while Aldi secured permission to expand.
Was that a carefully calculated commercial ambush? We don’t know. Was it coincidence? It could have been. If Aldi recognised what was happening next door and decided that this was a particularly good moment to accelerate its own expansion, there would be nothing sinister about that whatsoever.
It would simply be very smart business. Perhaps that’s what makes the Lewes supermarket saga so fascinating. Sometimes the best response to a competitor proposing a new shop next door isn’t to try to stop them. It’s to make your own shop bigger first.
At the end of the day, business is cutthroat. If a competitor decides to pitch up next door to you it your right to try and see that competitor off. Whether this was a commercial act to throw cold water over a competitor plans and enhance their own gains, or a long term planned project is anyone’s guess but you can’t deny it could have been either.
