THE highly-anticipated wait for a large supermarket to open its doors in a Georgian market town is finally over.

Lidl’s new store on Queens Road in Richmond opened on Thursday – seeing the creation of 40 jobs for local people.

Work began on the former Co-op site in August 2017 after Richmondshire District Council granted planning permission.

The multi-million-pound development scheme was given the go-ahead after it promised to ensure the design is sympathetic to the town's character.

The new store features a 1,377m² sales area, an in-store bakery, longer-style tills with dual packing, customer toilets and baby changing facilities.

David Murphy, Lidl UK’s regional head of property, said: “We would like to thank all those who have played a part in bringing this new Lidl store to Richmond.

“It is great for us to be able to create more jobs and investment opportunities in the area, and we can’t wait to start serving our multi award-winning products to the local community.”

A ribbon-cutting ceremony took place, and customers have been offered the chance to sample several Lidl products.

During the opening week there are offers on selected goods.

Lidl UK has experienced continued growth over the years for their products – more than two thirds of which are British sourced.

The new Richmond store will add to Lidl UK’s existing store portfolio of over 650.

Founded in Germany, they now have ten distribution centres across Great Britain employing around 20,000 people.