The operator of two Stirling takeaways running without approval has had a fresh planning bid rejected.
Black Rooster Peri Peri and ChurrosNChill began operating in spring 2021 during lockdown at the former Falcon Bar premises in Borestone Road.
Its upstairs neighbours, Don Ritchie and Carol Ann Marshall, who have lived in their Borestone Crescent flat since the 1990s, had complained that they are regularly disturbed by a loud rumbling sound from a large flue and customers shouting in the rear car park as well as cooking smells.
Operator Richie Wilmot senior, however, had told the Observer: “We want to make our neighbours’ lives as comfortable as possible, while at the same time our business continuing to trade.”
A July 2021 retrospective planning application for the subdivision and change of use from a pub to class three restaurant and takeaway, installation of flue and formation of outdoor seating area (retrospective) and installation of flue was turned down by planners.
And a second planning application - submitted in March this year - was rejected at the beginning of this month.
In their decision issued on November 2, Stirling Council planners state that the development ‘would have a harmful impact on the reasonable residential amenities of adjacent residential properties at Borestone Crescent, and to the wider local area’.
Click here for more news and sport from the Stirling area.
It was also pointed out that the scheme does not comply with planning policies, adding: ‘The application is not supported with an odour assessment which demonstrates it is a compatible use - taking account that odours could be sensed at the pedestrian underpass area in the middle of the adjacent Borestone Roundabout, the objection on the grounds of harmful impact on the reasonable residential amenities of adjacent residential properties at Borestone Crescent, and to the wider local area, this is considered to be a material consideration which the application does not properly address’
And the application did not ‘contain sufficient information to fully determine the application in relation to the impact of noise and neighbours amenity, and a compatible use, adding: ‘The outdoor seating area is located in close proximity to the first floor flatted property at 47B Borestone Crescent, and it is likely to result in a loss of reasonable residential amenity from patron noise and disturbance to 47B Borestone Crescent (internal and external).’
In January this year enforcement action began over the takeaways which sought to remedy the planning breach and detrimental residential amenity.
This required the use as a restaurant/takeaway to stop, the removal of the flue, including fixtures and fittings, and the removal of the tables and chairs from the outdoor area to the rear of the appeal property.
Mr Wilmot argued in an appeal that the enforcement notice exceeded what is necessary to remedy any planning breach or injury to amenity.
He further stated there had previously been a flue at the rear of the premises, a kitchen and restaurant in the pub, and a beer garden – and that the Reporter should ‘suspend or set aside the enforcement notice pending the determination of an amended retrospective planning application which is currently before the council.’
But in a determination Scottish Government Reporter Fortune Gumbo stated that the flue, which has a different position and design to a previous one, was a new development.
He added: ‘This development requires planning permission and no such permission had been granted at the time the enforcement notice was issued.
‘To remedy the allegation...I do not consider that it is an excessive requirement for the council to require the removal of the flue in its entirety and its associated fixtures and fittings.’
The Reporter further pointed out that while a kitchen may have been part of the former public house, it was ‘incidental’ to its primary use as a bar and continued: ‘In any event the [enforcement] notice does not require the use of the kitchen to cease in isolation, but is focused on the alleged unauthorised use of the appeal property as a whole.
‘The first requirement of the notice is clear and proportionate and goes to the heart of the allegation.
‘The cessation of the unauthorised use would simultaneously deal with the breach of planning control and injury to amenity set out in the reasons for issuing the enforcement notice. Therefore, this requirement is not excessive.’
