Bournemouth Borough Council: In 2014 changes were made to town planning legislation to allow certain changes of use for a temporary period of up to two years without requiring full planning permission. Baffi took advantage of this proposal and were nearing the end of their two year period when Pure Town Planning were instructed to secure permanent A3 restaurant use of the premises. Whilst we could have applied for a change of use under a standard full planning application, we advised that a prior approval for the permanent change of use from a shop (Use Class A1) to form a restaurant (Use Class A3) was a more efficient (a response has to be made by the Council within 56 days) and cost effective route to achieve the same outcome.
We then proceeded to prepare and submit the application a to Bournemouth Borough Council as we considered that the works were considered to constitute permitted development under Class C of the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015. Class C of the legislation states that such development is permitted subject to a number of criteria which in summary are: not more than 150 cubic square metres; land is not on land designated as SSSI, a safety hazard, military explosive area or listed building. Where development meets the criteria it is permitted subject to the condition that before beginning the development, the developer must make application to the Council so they can assess whether their prior approval is necessary in terms of the following matters:
(a) Noise impact of the development
(b) Odour impacts of the development;
(c) Impacts of storage and handling of waste in relation to development;
(d) Impacts of hours of opening of the development;
(e) transport and highways impacts of the development;
(f) whether it is undesirable to change the use because of the impact on the provision of services or where the building is located within a key shopping area;
(g) the siting, design or external appearance of facilities.
The Bournemouth Borough Council planning officer assessed the proposal on all of the above criteria and deemed that the proposed change of use was acceptable in all respects. The Council agreed with our view that because there are other vacant properties within close proximity and the hours of use would encourage daytime footfall to the centre, the continued use of this unit as a restaurant would not have a harmful impact on the overall vitality or viability of the shopping area.
If you are ever in the Southbourne area around lunch/dinner time then we recommend you pop along to ‘Baffi’ for a wood-fired Neapolitan
If you are looking to change the use of an existing commercial premises to accommodate your business, then contact us for a FREE, confidential appraisal to find out how we can achieve the best consent for you too.