Appeal 3280257

The appeal is dismissed.

The appeal property was originally granted prior approval for the change of use of the premises to an A3 café/restaurant with condition imposed to restrict the hours of opening. A variation of condition for the hours of opening was subsequently approved by the Council. The subject of this appeal relates to the most recently approved hours of opening. The appellant seeks Sunday opening until 22:00.

The main issue is the effect of the opening hours on the living conditions of local residents with regards to noise and disturbance.

The appeal site is located within a short parade of shops and services serving the local community. There are flats above the row of shops, and in general, the local area is residential in nature.

I am aware of the objections received to the proposal from local residents. The occupants of the flats above are directly affected by the immediacy of the operations within the building and from customers coming and going from the premises. Even if the appellant could provide taxi bookings for customers, neighbouring occupiers would be exposed to noise and disturbance arising from car doors closing, voices and car radios. The appellant’s endeavours to limit numbers visiting the premises is noted. However, there are no precise details given to allow me to comment on this further.

The premises may be allowed to open until 22:00 on Mondays. I reason that as Sunday is the only day of the week when the premises are restricted to closing at 20:00, local residents would not be disturbed later into the night when there is a reasonable expectation of lower levels of disturbance on a Sunday evening than any other evening throughout the week.

I appreciate the public house close by may have extended opening hours on a Sunday compared to the proposal before me. However, this is a standalone building and its relationship with local residential dwellings is not precisely the same as that of the appeal proposal.

The local retail shop along the parade may close at 22:00 although this functions as a convenience store. The customer offer and consumer pattern of shopping is different to that on offer to that of the appeal site. The circumstances of the two businesses cannot reasonably be compared. The café may be open until 21:00. However, this is an earlier close than that requested by the appellant. In any event, the precise details of its circumstances are not before me to comment.

The Coronavirus pandemic may have affected trading at the site. However, the mandatory restrictions that the business has been subjected to is no longer in place. To add, I accept that there is concern regarding running a successful business post-pandemic although there is nothing before me to suggest that numbers of people currently employed would be at risk or that the business as a viable commodity would be compromised by not being allowed to open for business later into the evening on a Sunday.

To conclude on this matter, an extended opening until 22:00 on Sundays would result in detrimental harm arising to the living conditions of local residents, and on this basis the appeal is not supported as the proposal would be contrary to Policy DM1 of the South Tyneside Local Development Framework Development Management Policies 2011 in its aims to protect residential amenity.

As the proposal would result in harm arising to the living conditions of local residents, it would thus lead to conflict with the development plan taken as a whole. There are no material considerations that indicate the decision should be made other than in accordance with the development plan. Therefore, for the reasons given, I conclude that the appeal should not succeed.