‘Doesn’t the council have anything better to do?’
LANDLORD VOWS TO FIGHT ORDER TO REMOVE BENCHES OUTSIDE HIS PUB
THE owner of a Huddersfield town centre pub who has been ordered to remove 10 benches in front of it has promised to fight Kirklees Council all the way.
Mark Robertson of The Plumbers Arms spoke out after the Examiner revealed that Karl Battersby, the council’s strategic director for economy and infrastructure, was set to serve him with an enforcement notice.
Mr Robertson placed the benches on a vacant piece of land and anyone, as well as the pub’s drinkers, is free to sit down on them for a rest, have a cup of coffee or eat their own sandwiches.
He said: “I am able to appeal the decision and we will be doing so when I receive the notice. I have also applied for retrospective planning permission for them.”
And in a Facebook post he wrote: “Seems like Karl Battersby and Kirklees Licensing (note not Highways as they keep quoting), have been contacted and they don’t have an issue with where the benches are placed.
“Do they have nothing better to do with Huddersfield town centre, than concentrate their energies on my benches?”
Mr Robertson
is aggrieved
that despite spending more than £100,000 transforming the pub from one of the town centre’s worst eyesores five years ago into one of its most popular, he has never been given any encouragement by the council.
Huddersfield MP Barry Sheerman who has backed Mr Robertson’s enterprising zeal - he is due to open an upmarket wine bar next door to The Plumbers later this year after spending another six-figure sum - said of his bid to take Kirklees on: “Good for him.”