Plans for new Lidl store rejected because they fail to consider pedestrians and cyclists

I agree.

However I suspect that they don't put bike parking in because they tend to make the environment around those retail parks so hostile to anyone not in a car that they don't imagine that bike parking will ever actually be needed...

My usual bike parking spot in town yesterday - hopefully no bodies or bikes were harmed.

There's a city one near me where the only place to secure your bike is a couple of rails behind the trolley bay (on the pavement side).  They have a big car park which I've never seen more than about a quarter full at the very most, as most people in the area shop on foot. There are usually more people waiting at the bus stop or sat on Lidl's wall right next to it than there are cars in the car park (to the point where if I've had to walk past during the pandemic, I've opted to cut through the car park because it's empty whereas it's impossible to socially distance using the pavement alongside Lidl). They don't even have the excuse of out-of-townness to justify pandering to motorists and I doubt there are loads of people who come far across London to aim for that specific branch.  

I realise that before Lidl took it over, it was a Toys R Us or something so maybe they didn't have to apply for  specifics to do with transport and just took over the footprint of the site. But I'd hope something new and similar would be declined due to this, even if it was repurposing an existing site.  Oddly, there is also an Aldi about 200m away with almost the exact same layout and issues, but without any specific cycling parking - you have to lock to the outside rail of the trolley bay itself. 

Prosper0 wrote:

My local Lidl in Dartmouth has a large car park with zero bike parking. Pretty stupid considering how easy it is.  

Same for me unfortunately. And their lamp posts in the car park have such a large base that I can't chain my bike to them. I have to chain my bike to a post out on the street, and then walk to lidl instead.

My local Lidl is the same zero provision for parking any cycle and very limited space to walk from the nearby road to the store. The entrance to the car park is shaped so that cars speed in and out making it far more dangerous to walk along the pavement outside the store. We also have an Aldi that had cycle parking but which was removed for an unknown reason. I applaud Salford council and would urge Lidl and other supermarkets to be part of the community and design store layouts and external areas for everyone not rely on being picked up by council officals.

He had to go so far out to get a proper perspective on his gigantic ego.

Lidl may sell bike gear, but shoppers on bikes are not good customers for them. They want shoppers to purchase in bulk in one visit, rather than buy little and often and have designed the stores to support that. Frequent small load shoppers would make the shop busier without the increase in sales, and requires them to divert shelf stackers to tills. Therefore they have oversized trolleys, and tills with no run off requiring you to use a trolley to pack. If you have a trolley you are more likely to fill it. Using a shopping bag instead of a trolley means putting it on the floor at the till and trying to pack it whilst the cashier runs your purchases through like its an olympic event. The essentials (bread, milk, eggs) are not located close to each other, they are put in 4 corners of the shop and your search for them is distracted with discounted items or sweets etc. that you feel compelled to add to your trolley whilst forgetting the shopping list you went in with. If you have a small bag you would shop more conscious of the carrying capacity and not be tempted by the discounted or random crap. 

This is so true. See also: vouchers for money off, but only when you spend a certain amount. As a cyclist, I rarely spend more than £20 in one go.

I tend to make 2-3 trips to Lidl in a week.  It doesn't take them any longer to scan the items than it would if I were to buy the same items in a single trip - it means paying 3 times, but payment processing is lightning fast with contactless payment.

If I'm only doing a small shop, I can generally keep up with the cashier - but if I couldn't I could still use a trolley for a small shop.

More trips means they means they have more opportunity to tempt me with the nonsense that I don't need.

I steer clear of their busy times, which I probably wouldn't be able to do, if I was doing a weekly shop. So that has to be good for them.

My local store has Sheffield stands and a nearby store recently replaced their wheel benders with Sheffield stands.

In contrast my local Co-Op Food convenience store is purely for small shopping trips, it is adjacent to a shared use path and has about 26 car parking spaces - and about 4 wheel benders (might be five, but they are so tightly packed, you'd struggle to fit 3 bikes). It is on a new build estate, that opened less than 5 years ago.

All the Lidls I've used have a few larger trollies, but most are little mini-trollies, and there's even more of the pull-along baskets. They seem to positively encourage smaller shopping trips, possibly to keep re-tempting you with the middle-of-lidl stuff. The shops themselves are not exactly big, the whole scale is far smaller than the traditional supermarket, and they tend to be local rather than out of town. The whole set up seems ideal for welcoming the cyclists shopper. Except for the lack of proper bike parking.

Maybe it's just the ones near me.

Our local supermarkets are not hopeless, they are clueless. 

On one occasion, I popped into Aldi on my way home just to pick up literally two or three items. No sign of anywhere to park the bike, so I asked where I could lock it up, and was told they were happy for me to lock it on one of those shiny silve bollards (as shown in the Maidenhead Lidl picture in the article). 

Erm ....

I think a lot of it comes down to the local council - both the Aldi's nearest me have plenty of Sheffield stands, under cover and visible from the tills whilst you queue.  Doesn't surprise me about Maidenhead - I used to work there and this is what the council consider to be good cycle provision for a 40 limit road...
 

I expect it also depends whether it's an edge-of-town or more central location. The one I'm thinking of is new build, relatively central, and not only the bike parking is good (and well used), but the interior doesn't resemble what someone's described above either.

Anyway, we seem to be overlooking the good news, that the planning authorities are taking cycling and walking into consideration.