The major supermarket giant has confirmed the opening date for its delayed store.
The new £9m Aldi in Neats Court, Queenborough, was due to welcome its first customers in April.
But road access permission meant the opening date had to be pushed back.
It also had to fight off a legal challenge from Tesco during the planning stages.
However, the German retailer has revealed that the store will eventually open at 8am on Thursday 18 July.
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Team GB gold medalist Matthew Langridge will attend the ribbon cutting ceremony and give away free bags of fresh fruit and veg to the first 30 customers in the queue.
The rowing star said: “I am so excited to be opening the new Aldi store; it will be great to chat with customers and a lovely way for me to say thank you to Aldi for supporting Team GB.”
Store manager David Friday and his team of 40 colleagues will also be at the opening.
The figure includes 30 staff from the Sheerness store between Pepys Avenue and Millennium Way – which will close once the new supermarket opens – to be transferred.
Mr Friday: “We can’t wait to open the doors to the new store in Queenborough.
“It’s going to be a special day and with Olympic hero Matthew Langridge joining us it’s going to be a morning to remember.
Home Bargains is set to take over the existing Aldi unit, but declined to comment when it would move in when asked by KentOnline.
The Neats Court branch is a third bigger than the town center store, with 134 parking spaces – 59 more than in Sheerness. It also has new cycling and walking connections.
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Aldi is investing £18m across the county in opening new stores and refurbishing older ones, such as the expansion of its Sittingbourne branch on East Street which has now started.
The new store will offer fresh British meat products with weekly specials, the award-winning Aldi Specially Selected range, exclusive beers, wines and spirits and a Food to Go section at the front of the store.
Aldi’s Specialbuys will also be available in the middle aisle every Thursday and Sunday.
The delay surrounding the store’s opening has resulted from legal negotiations over access to the supermarket, which will be off the A249 roundabout, Thomsett Way.
National Highways has been working with Aldi since around 2022 and the scheme was given technical approval earlier this year with an agreement signed in May.
But the supermarket has come under fire from Sheppey residents after legally challenging Lidl’s planning permission to build a new store at Cowstead Corner – also in Queenborough.
Aldi won permission from Swale Council to build its new store on the island in December 2022, months after plans were submitted in June 2019.
It said the 15-year-old branch in Sheerness was “no longer fit for purpose”. Negotiations with the authority began in 2017.
It was given the go-ahead in November 2020, but construction was halted when supermarket rival Tesco’s permit was quashed at the High Court the following October.
Tesco claimed that the impact of the proposals on Sheerness town center had not been sufficiently considered, that the decision to grant permission was “procedurally incorrect” as there was no screening to determine whether an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) was needed and that irregularities in the planning committee’s decision-making.
However, Aldi argued that an EIA was not needed as the site is zoned for large-scale uses in the borough’s local plan.
A spokesman for the supermarket later revealed a new retail impact assessment had been carried out, which found the store’s relocation would have “no impact on Sheerness town center or other centers that would require refusal”.
By this point, Aldi had already put their old site on the market for £2m and resubmitted plans in November 2022.
Planners recommended the application be refused, saying the closure of the current store would have a detrimental impact on the town.
But Aldi has warned the council that its existing site is too small and will close even if its plans for a new store are rejected.
To view additional planning applications and other public notices for your area, click here.
In December 2022 councilors voted 14 to one to allow the resubmitted plans.
Aldi is one of the fastest growing supermarkets in Britain with over 1,010 stores and over 45,000 colleagues.