A DISCOUNT retailer is looking to open stores in Chester and Ellesmere Port, as part of an aggressive expansion drive.

The supermarket has revealed what it says are "ambitious plans" to achieve 1,000 stores by the end of 2023 across Great Britain, having currently hit 860.

As part of that, it is looking to acquire sites across the country that meet its standard store formats.

As part of the site hunting, Lidl is looking at suitable sites across the country where it would prefer to open new stores, and has drawn up a long list with accompanying map as part of a site requirements brochure.

Stores would be either town centre locations, edge of centre sites or at existing retail parks, with easy access, and each would feature solar panels and an electric vehicle charging point.

On the supermarket's site requirements brochure, it has pinned four locations marked 'Chester – Broughton', 'Chester – East', 'Chester – North' and 'Chester – South' on a proposed map of where it would potentially open new stores.

Based on the rough proposed locations by the Lidl brochure map, the retailer is looking at sites in and around the Broughton Shopping Park, Upton, Christleton and Handbridge areas for where it could open a new store.

Also listed are 'Ellesmere Port – North', which is shown on the map as north of the M53 motorway, around Hooton and the Vauxhall Motors plant, and 'Ellesmere Port – South', which is shown as being in the Cheshire Oaks retail park.

Also listed is 'Frodsham/Helsby', with the map location pointing to a site potentially in Frodsham.

Currently, Lidl has a store open at Chester's Greyhound Retail Park.

Lidl has already opened 180 new stores in the last three years.

Christian Härtnagel, CEO at Lidl GB, said: “We are calling on developers and landlords up and down the country to help find potential sites for us to build Lidl stores, which demonstrates the continued ambition we have to further expand our store portfolio across the nation.

"Despite the challenges of the past year, we still managed to meet our ambitious target of opening, on average, one new store per week across Great Britain.

“We are looking forward to opening more stores throughout the country and welcoming new colleagues in the coming months and years, so that more communities can access high quality food at the lowest prices on the market.”

All stores will include Lidl’s bakery, offering freshly baked bread, biscuits and pastries, created by the discounter’s in-store bakers throughout the day.

Each new store will also become part of Lidl’s food redistribution programme Feed It Back, which sees surplus food donated to those within local communities that need it the most, via food banks or partner charities.