Restaurant blocked from extending opening hours
DECISION FOLLOWS COMPLAINTS FROM NEIGHBOURS
A popular Holme Valley restaurant has been prevented from extending its opening hours.
However planners said Devour, based at the Dyehouse in Thongsbridge near Holmfirth, could extend its building and build a greenhouse and pergola.
But following objections from residents living nearby members of Kirklees Council’s Strategic Planning Committee voted to make the venue stick to its existing hours.
During a lengthy debate the committee heard how there were concerns about late-night noise and inadequate parking at the restaurant, on Luke Lane.
Devour’s owner Olivia Robinson referred to her “high-class, indemand destination restaurant”, which includes a cookery school and a hospitality business, as “a passion project”.
She said the “innovative and creative” restaurant, which employed more than two dozen people, was “the beating heart” of the community and supported local producers.
She said the proposed improvements were aimed at ensuring its future.
She commented: “Ask yourselves: who wouldn’t want this kind of investment into their ward?
“Behind our considerable ongoing investment has to be a robust business strategy, sustainable and profitable and offering some element of potential growth.
“Without this Devour will cease to be viable and ultimately fail. It’s a very thin line between subsidy and sustainability.
“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried about the future.”
Clr Nigel Patrick (Con, Holme
Valley South), who spoke on behalf of residents living opposite the site, said previously agreed operating hours of 10am to 10.30pm had not been adhered to, prompting complaints.
He said proposed new times included an earlier 9am opening and closing at 11.30pm on weekdays, midnight at weekends and at 1.30am on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve had been extended further following negotiations with council planning officers.
Clr Patrick was critical of planning officers’ involvement in the scheme.
He said: “Far from controlling what happens at the site the recommendation allows them to continue to breach the original committee decision.
“If approved it formalises that breach and will inevitably continue to create problems for the neighbouring properties.
“I was assured that Kirklees Planning was going to get tough with people who breached planning conditions, but in this case officers are happy to overrule the original committee decision that was made to protect the amenity of the neighbouring properties.
“Officers describe the difference as ‘negligible.’ I would argue that an extension of up to two-and-a-half hours is significant for those living next door.”
Speaking in support of the restaurant Clr Paul Davies (Lab, Holme Valley South) said not all residents shared the same view and that the owners’ investment should be recognised.
He said they had done “a fantastic job” in converting a former mill and in doing so had created sustainable employment for the area. He urged the committee to support the restaurant and added: “This will continue to provide us with yet another very good business within the valley helping us to sustain jobs and a viable economy particularly following through from Covid-19.”
If approved it ...will inevitably continue to create problems for the neighbouring
properties