According to News Shopper, the Lidl in Sydenham is down as being up for relocation, while Lidl’s list of 100 new sites also has Forest Hill as #37 (ranked alphabetically) for where it would like to open:
I’m not sure where in Forest Hill they may be looking, or if we could ‘steal’ the Sydenham store… or if it is just a fluffy press release with big ambitions 
Planning approval for the hotel on the South Circular requires an amenity to replace the lost Coop there. Wonder if that would be big enough. Or there is activity at the old Tops Tiles but that could be just preparations for re-lease.
Parking at Topps could be a problem, but maybe the site of the MOT Station could be another option - recently under auction: MOT station under railway bridge auctioned off
Some of the warehouses around Malham Road could be another area.
Do Lidl have any shops without adjacent car parks?
That would limit their options in Forest Hill. But if they don’t need a car park, Paddy Power used to be a Tesco.
Brockley is also on the list, but not HOP.
I can’t think where in Sydenham they’d relocate to. There’s a lovely Lidl (plus car park) on Southend Lane which gives Perry Vale people a choice of two branches already.
Their Penge store, which had no car park, didn’t last long.
Isn’t there a Lidl already in Bromley High Street, or is that Aldi?
It’s a Lidl in Bromley High Street (where BHS used to be)
The Southend Lane Lidl may be fine if you have a car but not if you’re using public transport!
So don’t tell me they are going to build another one down there! Or are they going to move the existing one, although I don’t know where.
As the Bromley High Street store has only been open a couple of years I’d be surprised if they are considering moving it apart to somewhere bigger. Perhaps they’re interested in opening an additional store out of the town centre.
Yes maybe 
Has the Penge store gone? 
I’m afraid so. I was down there last week and it’s now an independent supermarket but I don’t remember the name.
When it comes to Lidl (and Aldi, for that matter), they need to reformat the footprint of their shops to allow for more till space if they’re to attract more custom. Queuing at their handful of tills is the one single reason that puts more off of shopping in either outlet. It genuinely puzzles me why they haven’t addressed this yet.
The Aldi in Bell Green has a large number of self service tills so you can be in and out in a few minutes for a quick shop, though I’ve not tried it at peak times eg Sat mornings.
Would it be unfair to say that that particular store is an exception to the rule? As far as I’m aware both Lidl and Aldi like to build their own stores and control the design process whereas the old Toys ‘R’ Us occupied a footprint much larger than they’re accustomed to, hence more till space.
Aldi in Catford has recently taken out all but 2 of the old style tills and replaced the space with around 8 self- service tills.
I don’t know, but they changed some tills over to self-service so I suspect they have worked out this is better for all concerned.
Isn’t the small number of staffed tills one of the cost-reducing measures to keep prices low? That was my understanding anyway.
The self-service tills at Bell Green Aldi are relatively recent (a couple of months ago?) - they haven’t been there since the store opened. I thought it strange that they didn’t have any, but perhaps self-service tills are expensive and since they already had few staffed-tills there’s less benefit in investment in self-service tills. I prefer using self-service tills now, especially during the pandemic to avoid other people handling my goods. Now that Aldi Bell Green has self-service tills I’m now shopping there more often, in addition to Sainsburys.
Yeah, this is correct. Aldi allow customers to queue longer but gain in efficiency by moving their workers around more to do tasks as required (hence the lack of staff hiding behind stock cages / in quiet corners looking at their phones).