Changes.

Questions are being asked locally about the delays in the redevelopment of the small retail park on the old Atlas Chemicals factory site in Fraser Road, Erith. The retail site has been closed and boarded up for over a year, and the site has been owned by Lidl for nearly 7 years. It was thought that once planning permission had been granted by Bexley Council that work to redevelop the site and build a new Lidl supermarket would begin relatively soon, but this has not been the case. I know that a number of local residents have contacted the public relations department at Lidl, but to the best of my knowledge no response has yet been forthcoming. I do know that the original planning application for a new discount supermarket was turned down by Bexley Council, but it has now been granted. It is somewhat of a mystery why the site has been ready for redevelopment for such a relatively long time without any action appearing to take place. Personally I cannot understand why Bexley Council declined the original planning permission; Erith is dominated by Morrison's supermarket - there is no realistic competition - I don't feel that Farm Foods or Iceland offer anything like the full range of goods that Morrison's does. On top of this, the Erith Quarry housing development - next door to the proposed Lidl site is now open, with over four hundred new houses and apartments. In early 2019, Lidl carried out an independently audited survey of local residents; the results were overwhelmingly positive. A total of 1,366 people responded to the survey, of which 1,276 local residents supported the construction of a new Lidl store on the former Atlas Trading Estate site. Lidl is a German international discount retailer chain that operates over 12,000 stores, present in every member state of the European Union, Serbia, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. Headquartered in Neckarsulm, Baden-Württemberg. In 1930, Josef Schwarz became a partner in a company based in Heilbronn named Südfrüchte Großhandlung Lidl & Co. which had been established since at least 1858 under the name A.Lidl & Cie specialising in the sale of exotic fruits. Schwarz renamed the company Lidl & Schwarz KG and expanded into a food wholesaler. In 1977, under his son Dieter Schwarz, the Schwarz Group began to focus on discount markets, larger supermarkets, and cash and carry wholesale markets. Dieter did not want to use the name Schwarz-Markt (literally "black market") and wanted to use the name of his father's former business partner, A. Lidl, but legal reasons prevented him from using that name for his discount stores. When he discovered a newspaper article about a painter and retired schoolteacher Ludwig Lidl, he bought the rights to the name from him for 1,000 German marks. The first Lidl discount store was opened in 1973, copying the Aldi concept. Schwarz rigorously removed merchandise that did not sell from the shelves, and cut costs by keeping the size of the retail outlets as small as possible. By 1977, the Lidl chain comprised 33 discount stores. Lidl opened its first UK store in 1994. Its grocery market share in the UK was 5.9% in 2019. Like fellow German supermarket Aldi, Lidl has a zero waste, no-frills, "pass-the-savings-to-the-consumer" approach of displaying most products in their original delivery cartons, allowing the customers to take the product directly from the carton. When the carton is empty, it is simply replaced with a full one. Staffing is low. Compared to Aldi, there are generally more branded products offered. Lidl distributes many low-priced gourmet foods by producing each of them in a single European Union country for its whole worldwide chain, but it also sources many local products from the country where the store is located. Like Aldi, Lidl has special weekly offers, and its stock of non-food items often changes. In contrast to Aldi, Lidl advertises extensively in its homeland of Germany. The Lidl operation in the United Kingdom took a different approach from Germany, with a focus on marketing and public relations, and providing employee benefits not required by law, including paying the independently verified living wage and offering a staff discount. Upmarket products were introduced, especially in the lead-up to Christmas. This required significant investment in marketing to produce sales growth but had an effect on Lidl's logistical operation and pressure on profits. Ronny Gottschlich, who had run Lidl GB for the six years to 2016, was responsible for this approach, which led to friction with head office, due to the cost involved. In September 2016, Gottschlich unexpectedly left and was replaced by the Austrian sales and operations director, German-national Christian Härtnagel. Lidl continued to have ambitious investment plans in the United Kingdom, doubling the number of stores to 1,500. Lidl in the UK has been doing extremely well. The discount supermarkets annual profits more than tripled to £157 million, and it kept its position as the UK 's fastest growing supermarket chain, with an increase of 38 million additional shopper visits. It now has 976 stores now in 2025, against 964 a year ago, and plans to open a further 13 stores between November and Christmas. Lidl now has a total market share of 8.2% in the UK. It has a reputation as a responsible and well-paying employer, paying over £14 per hour to shop assistants. Management roles are also very well remunerated compared with most retail sales positions. Comments and feedback as unusual to me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Regular readers will know that I wrote at some length about the closure of the Gravesend to Tilbury ferry service in March of last year. It would appear that all is not lost, as discussions have been going on about bringing the service back but using a different financial model. Last week Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves visited the Dartford crossing, which was not widely reported in the popular press, while she was there Rachel Reeves made a statement acknowledging the campaign being run by MP for Gravesham, Dr. Lauren Sullivan to return the ferry service which before its closure made around 100,000 journeys a year across the river. The Gravesend to Tilbury ferry service was previously provided by a company called Jetstream but the service was suspended because Thurrock Council, under severe financial pressure had to withdraw its subsidy. The other major funder, Kent County Council which itself was suffering from reduced budgets and increased costs was not prepared up to make up Thurrock council's shortfall. The government appointed Thames Estuary Growth Board which comprises members of the Kent County Council, Thurrock Council, Gravesham Council, the Port of London Authority, the Port of Tilbury and prospective new ferry operators will advise and oversee the potential return of the ferry. It is anticipated that funding for a new revised service may at least be partially provided by a substantial donation from the toll fees of the forthcoming Lower Thames Crossing, although this is currently still in negotiation. During her speech Chancellor Rachel Reeves said "whilst not promising to fund the crossings, the Lower Thames Crossing needs to work for the people who are hosting the infrastructure. We want to make sure that the LTC benefits people in Gravesham. I know this and I know that investment into the local area will have benefits". From my personal understanding, the level of tourist footfall in Gravesend and the surrounding area has been negatively affected by the loss of the ferry service. As visitors to the riverside town would come from the cruise liners which frequently dock in Tilbury. It was also used by school students from Essex who went to schools in and around Gravesend. There are so few River crossings east of Tower Bridge that a ferry service is a vital link especially for those travellers who do not have access to a car, and yet they need to travel across the river. For those people the only current option is to travel to Bluewater and then pick up a bus which would take them across the Dartford crossing. Unfortunately this can be a slow and unreliable way of transport. My other concern is that any funds from the Lower Thames Crossing would need to be set into law to ensure that the service did not lose funding after a relatively short period of time. The Lower Thames Crossing is not due to open until 2030, but knowing there could well be delays, and policies, and indeed governments can change in the meantime, nothing is currently guaranteed. I understand the government 's support for the return of the Gravesend to Tilbury ferry service as this may mitigate the local opposition by residents who live close to the forthcoming Lower Thames Crossing and by appearing beneficent, they may well reduce the level of criticism of that project. This may sound rather cynical, but I think it is an unfortunate reality.

A row between a local MP and members of Bexley Council has got so big and malicious that it has now featured on the BBC news website. For a story around a local Council to make national news is quite unusual. The disagreement centres around potholes in the roads of Bexley Borough which has been highlighted by Labour MP for Bexleyheath and Crayford, Daniel Francis who has said that the funds supplied by central government to the Conservative led Bexley Council have not been properly spent on fixing potholes in the roads, and he has highlighted this to the point that Prime Minister Keir Starmer recently made a statement on the subject during Prime Minister's question time and thus escalating the disagreement to an extremely high level. As regular readers will know I do not get involved in party politics, and this is going to be true in this case. Both sides in the argument dispute the others statements. Personally, I have no axe to grind regarding the situation, but I feel that the row reflects badly on all parties involved. It certainly did not need to get the Prime Minister involved in what is a relatively minor local issue. I think it makes those involved look small-minded and petty. You can read more about it on the BBC news website by clicking here.

I think pretty much everyone in the UK gets a lot of unsolicited mail through their letter boxes. It seems to be a curse of modern life. I have whinged at length about this at length in the past, and I am not going to repeat myself now. The worst part of the problem seems to be what is called “letter box stuffing” – the posting of advertising flyers and leaflets through the door from dedicated delivery people. In the last week I have had a handful of leaflets advertising take – away pizzas and kebabs. There is nothing unusual with this, but the problem is, they are for food outlets in Dartford; one is even from a place in the Brent, which is pretty much halfway to Greenhithe, and according to Google Maps, over six miles from Erith. There is no way that these places would deliver a meal over that kind of distance, and there is no way that any sane person would want to – whatever you did order would be a greasy, cold and congealed mess by the time it eventually arrived. Rather than just ranting on about the pointlessness and waste of money on the part of the companies that leaflet places way outside of their catchment area, I have decided to do something positive about it. It just happens that two of the places involved in this practice are part of a franchise. I looked up the website of the parent company in each case, found the contact details, and Emailed a complaint to them. I pointed out that it did not make business sense for their outlets to leaflet areas over six miles away – at least twice the maximum delivery distance quoted on the leaflets themselves. It is either local poor management, or the outlets are employing unscrupulous door to door leaflet delivery agents.

I would like to say thank you to the number of readers who have been in contact over the last couple of weeks to enquire about my health. Unfortunately, I'm still housebound and suffering from extreme exhaustion and a number of other conditions that I won't bother you with, but suffice to say when I am not in the house. I am using the excellent NHS patient transport system to take me to and from outpatient consultations at various local hospitals. I think that some people were under the impression that after I spent a month as an in patient at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich I would be miraculously cured of everything that was wrong with me, but unfortunately that is not the case and I am still very unwell. I do very much appreciate the concern and the enquiries that have been made in the meantime however. One thing that does concern me is that I will be unable to attend the annual Christmas tree festival at Christ Church Erith, which I have been a volunteer at over the last decade or so as a committee member of the Friends of Christ Church Erith. As I do not have the strength or endurance to attend the very worthwhile charity fund rising event. This is something that I greatly regret, but I'm just not well enough to make my appearance.

The end video this  week is some historic black and white footage taken in Powis Street and the market in  Woolwich at Christmas 1963. Comments and feedback to me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.