UPDATE: Change to planning application timeline for new Laois Lidl supermarket
Lidl is aiming to open a new supermarket serving Mountmellck
The planning decision on a new Lidl for a Laois town has hit another delay.
The discount supermarket chain Lidl Ireland GmbH has asked Laois County Council for more time to amend their application for a Mountmellick Lidl, due to decided upon this week.
The new store, built in place of a derelict car garage, is promised to create 25 jobs in Mountmellick, and Lidl estimate it will add €1 million per year to the local economy while reversing dereliction and vacancy.
The Laois planners have agreed to give them another three months, with the extra information to be supplied by April 23.
It is the third delay in the decision on the application, which was first expected to be made in July 2025.
The latest delay centres around the repeated request by Laois planners for Lidl to include pedestrian walkways to a housing estate and a side road, either side of the site for the supermarket, a derelict garage on Emmett Street. They had told Lidl in January that it had two weeks to amend its application to include the paths.
The Mountmellick Town Team had also originally asked for the walkways, which are in line with the town's development plan to support "active travel" by foot or bicycle rather than car.
Lidl had first said it was not including the paths because they might become 'rat runs' and said they made the journey to the shop no shorter.
Following the first decision delay, hundreds of Mountmellick people signed an online petition to Lidl pleading for the new store.
The Mountmellick Lidl application will now be decided upon in May 2026.