Aldi at Hylton Riverside Retail Park closes its doors for the last time

The popular store shut it’s doors for good on Wednesday, January 20 after being part of the retail park for many years due to it no longer meeting Aldi’s “current requirements”.

Despite the closure of the store, Aldi confirmed that all colleagues were offered the opportunity to relocate to one of the other four stores across the city in an effort to prevent job losses.

An Aldi spokesperson said: “Our store at Hylton Riverside Retail Park closed on Wednesday 20th January following a number of years of successful trade.

"Unfortunately, the store no longer met our current requirements.

“While we’ve closed this store, we have continued to invest in the City of Sunderland. We opened a new store at Pennywell Industrial Estate in June 2020, reopened our Carley Hill Road store on Thursday 21st January following a significant refurbishment and are due to refresh our Knollside Close store later this year.

“All Hylton Riverside colleagues have been given the opportunity to relocate to one of our four stores in Sunderland and we look forward to welcoming customers at these locations, especially Carley Hill Road and Pennywell, both of which are less than 10 minutes away.”

In July last year, an online petition set up by Hylton Riverside Costa Coffee manager, Kimberly Kennedy, gathered over 500 signatures an in effort to prevent the closure of the supermarket.

Speaking at the time, Kimberly said: “Being from the surrounding community, I know how important that shop is to a lot of people.

“Looking from the outside in, it always appears to be busy and I know so many elderly people who only use that supermarket.

“A lot of them have said they wouldn’t use any of the other Aldi shops due to the size of them, they prefer the smaller store.”

On Thursday, January 21, Carley Hill Road Aldi reopened after being transformed as part of Aldi’s £500 million investment into further improving its stores and services across the UK.

Ahead of the reopening, Aldi Store Manager Richard Smith said: “The store is looking fantastic, and we can’t wait to welcome our loyal customers back so they can see it for themselves.”

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