A proposed curry house in an area lacking takeaways has been rejected by councillors because the applicant refused to give any information about traffic, parking, noise and smells.
Bristol City Council development control committee members said they would have granted permission had the details been provided, even though the plans for the new shop in St Anne’s breached the local authority’s policy on how close a hot food outlet could be to a school.
Usman Mahmood, who has run The Gilmore convenience store next door in Birchwood Road for 12 years and has had an extension built for the takeaway due to requests from customers, presented a petition signed by 130 people hoping councillors would give the go-ahead.
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He said there was only one Chinese takeaway in the area but nothing else.
His petition was backed by Brislington East ward Labour Cllr Tim Rippington who told the committee on Wednesday, December 7: “I don’t know why but we seem to be going out of our way to find issues with this simple planning application.
“The guidance on schools surely doesn't apply here – how many seven- and eight-year-olds have you seen gathering outside a curry house when they should be in school?
“Traffic in this neighbourhood is very quiet. If anything, a local curry takeaway is going to cut the number of car journeys as people currently have to travel well outside the area for this.”
But officers recommended refusal because city council policy is for no hot food takeaways within 400 metres of a school, and the location is 150 metres from The Kingfisher primary school.
A planning officer said Mr Mahmood and his agent had also refused to accept that they needed to provide a parking survey and information on how many car trips the shop would generate, along with a noise report for the extractor fan equipment.
“The applicant has made it known in no uncertain terms that this is something he is not going to do,” the officer told the meeting.
Head of development control Gary Collins said the takeaway could be any type of hot food, so although a curry house might not appeal to primary school children, granting consent could see any takeaway in operation, such as fried chicken or burgers.
Lib Dem Cllr Andrew Brown said: “I find this frustrating because had we had those satisfactory traffic management reports and the other information, I’d have been inclined to vote for this, regardless of the proximity to the primary school.
“But we don’t have the information we need to make the decision, so I would vote to refuse.”
Committee chair Green Cllr Ani Stafford-Townsend told Mr Mahmood: “There is a lot of enthusiasm to support you going forward but you need to work with the planning department to satisfy the elements of the application to make a good application that we can pass. It’s frustrating.”
Green Cllr Lorraine Francis said: “We are really keen to do the right thing and we can’t start allowing unfinished applications to just go through because we’re sympathetic.
“If the work is done, I would be more than inclined to vote for it, but at this time there is insufficient information.”
Members voted 6-0 to reject the plans, with one abstention.
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