Council forced to back down in takeaway purge
Councillors forced to accept hot food at TIC
Scarborough Council’s bid to restrict the number of new hot food takeaways in the borough has been dealt a blow - in one of its own buildings. The authority wanted to put out its Tourist Information Centre in Sandside to tender as a restaurant, cafe or hot food takeaway.
However, last month the council voted overwhelmingly to adopt a new policy to stop the rise in the number of takeaway establishments in the borough to try and tackle the growing problem of obesity.
So when the application first came before the committee just days after the vote it was deferred to ask the applicant which is Scarborough Council to remove the hot food use from the application.
Speaking at the first meeting Labour leader Cllr Steve Siddons, whose party proposed the clampdown, said: “The council unanimously voted to tackle the problems with takeaways so if we turn around three days later and approve the TIC to be a takeaway we are going to look like we are not sticking by our own decisions.”
Despite the vote the council as applications decided not to remove the hot food element from the change of use application and committee members were told that they had little choice to but to allow it to go through.
Planning officer David Walker told the committee that the vote did not represent and official change in planning policy, changes to which must go out to public consultation, therefore there was no planning reason to refuse.
Cllr David Chance added: “If we refuse this it will be allowed on appeal as we have no defence, there is no planning policy in place at the moment to allow us to do this.”
Councillors were also told that they had to ignore the fact the council was the applicant and had to treat the application on its merits.
Cllr Eric Broadbent said he could not vote for a takeaway.
He said: “This council could provide something a lot better with a bit of thought.”
The change of use was approved.