Supermarket chain Aldi has lodged bids with the city council to change the licensing terms of two of its city stores.

However the German giant has insisted it has no plans to alter the opening hours of any of its Norwich locations.

Norwich City Council has received two identical licensing bids from Aldi relating to its stores in Larkman Lane and Plumstead Road.

Both of the applications are seeking the same thing - to extend the times of day it can sell alcohol to customers to between 6am and 12 midnight, seven days a week.

With the stores currently only opening from 8am until 10pm Monday to Saturday and 10am until 4pm on Sundays, the bids aroused suspicions that the stores could soon be set to change their opening hours.

However, an Aldi spokesman has insisted the move was instead to "increase flexibility" over the festive period.

He said: "There are no plans to make permanent changes to the opening hours of our Norwich stores.

"The licensing applications are to give stores flexibility during seasonal periods.”