Castle ice cream seller under siege

English Heritage is locked in a row with an ice cream seller after forcing him to leave a popular spot.

A campaign has been launched to save Melvin Nobbs’s seaside ice cream van after he was ousted from his spot at Deal Castle in order to make way for a new cafe.

Mr Nobbs, 62, has run his business on the Kent coastline for more than three decades. He said: “The money that I get here, I wouldn’t be able to earn anywhere else.”

English Heritage said its plans to return the historic site to its Tudor settings do not include brightly coloured vans and Mr Whippy flakes.

Neil McCollum, the group’s director for the South East, added: “I’m sorry that he’s worried, but I know that Deal Castle is not his sole patch – he also trades successfully from a number of different locations across the town.”