Discount supermarket firm Aldi is to open its new store in St Ives at the end of the summer, creating up to 40 jobs.

The retailer, which already has branches in Huntingdon and St Neots, has just applied for planning permission to put up a range of signs for the store, at the junction of Stocks Bridge Way and Needingworth Road, which is nearing completion despite the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

Aldi is the latest business to build in an area which has become surprisingly popular for retailers, following on from the construction of the Morrisons supermarket across the road.

Its application to put up a range of signs and advertisements at the new store has gone before Huntingdonshire District Council, a step which normally takes place towards the end of construction.

A spokesman for Aldi said: “Construction of our new St Ives store is progressing as we move towards opening at the end of summer 2020.

“This will create up to 40 jobs for the community.”

St Ives Town Council backed Aldi when the firm’s plans for the store were first made, but there was opposition from nearby Holywell-cum-Needingworth Parish Council on road safety grounds. It had concerns about the impact on Needingworth Road where it had previously been worried about the effect of traffic from the adjacent Morrisons store on the junction which serves it.

The district council approved the siting of the Aldi store on the Compass Point business park, despite complaints that the site should have remained a business rather than a retail area.

The council said at the time that the site had been vacant more than 20 years after the park opened and that there was insufficient demand for office-type accommodation.

It said a survey had shown that 56 per cent of shoppers from St Ives went elsewhere to make their purchases and that Aldi would bring economic, environmental and social benefits.

In addition to Morrisons and the Marsh Harrier pub, development has seen the construction of the adjacent Abbey Retail Park which includes a range of food and drink outlets, such as McDonalds, Costa and Subway. There is also a nearby Tesco Express in a former pub.