Planning permission granted, regularising covid-measures at Poole pub and restaurant.
In the lead up to the festive period, Chapman Lily Planning are pleased to have seen planning permission granted, regularising essential measures taken at Maison Sax in Poole at the beginning of covid, and at the behest of government to ‘eat out to help out’ and other measures to support the hospitality industry.
The Maison Sax (formerly the Britannia Inn) has been a feature of the area since the 1800s, but unfortunately suffered recent enforcement complaints from newer residents. Along with the rest of the hospitality industry, Maison Sax has endured a period of significant uncertainty caused by the covid pandemic, which has seen many pubs and restaurants across the country close, never to reopen.
Maison Sax had to rapidly make changes to their approved outdoor arrangements to cater for covid-based customer expectations and legal social-distancing requirements and to quickly respond to Government guidance requiring such venues to stay open, especially during the Government-pushed ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ scheme earlier in 2020.
During that same period the planning system, as with other regulatory and non-regulatory systems, was under significant staffing and resource pressures nationally as well as locally; it was undoubtedly incapable of responding to the changes required by Government on existing businesses; hence the retrospective nature of this proposal.
Despite an initially dour assessment by the Council’s enforcement officer, and Chapman Lily having considered the proposal against the development plan and the baseline provided by the previous approval, we were content that this was an eminently approvable arrangement and that the amendments should be permitted in support of a business which has, and continues to, weather the economic storm caused by the global pandemic, and we were right.
Steven Bainbridge BSc (Hons) MSc MRTPI
Associate Director
Chapman Lily Planning Limited
M: 07780 052359
T: 01929 553818
E: steven.bainbridge@clplanning.co.uk
W: www.clplanning.co.uk
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