Work starts on new Lidl at Ipswich's Anglia Retail Park

The store is being built for retail park owner Ipswich Borough Assets (IBA) by local construction firm Brooks and Wood and work started at the end of January.

The new store is being built by local company Brooks and Wood next to the Jump In trampoline centre. (Image: Paul Geater)

The shell of the building is due to be handed over to Lidl at the beginning of August, and it is expected to take about two months to fit out so it should be able to open its doors in October.

IBA chair Colin Kreidewolf said it was good to see construction work finally under way after a long planning process.

He said: "This is a major new store being built for the park - it should be a reasonably straightforward construction and we should be able to hand it over to Lidl in the summer."

It is being built next to the Jump In trampoline centre, on the site of the former B&Q garden centre.

Mr Kreidewolf said: "When we bought the retail park there was already a lot of parking there so that should not be an issue with this new store. 

"We have already done quite a lot with the traffic layout in the Anglia Retail Park so we don't think this will cause any further problems."

Colin Kreidewolf welcomed the start of work on Lidl. (Image: Charlotte Bond)

There is a traffic study underway in the north west Ipswich area into more general congestion problems that this may be relevant to.

The new store will effectively complete the main part of the Anglia Retail Park - although the unit converted into a restaurant for Taco Bell has not yet opened.

Mr Kreidewolf said he was not sure what was happening there, although Taco Bell had taken on the lease and all that needed to be done there was final fitting out before it opened.