The owner of a town centre business has said a year-long planning saga has cost it thousands of pounds and curtailed its expansion plans.
Ben Cunningham, who runs mini golf bar Sneaky Links and escape room The Evidence Room, in Brentgovel Street, Bury St Edmunds, wanted to paint the front of his businesses black to go with white signage.
But West Suffolk Council has told Ben he is not allowed to use this colour as it would not be in keeping with the town’s conservation area, despite the shop historically having a black front with white lettering.
He said this has cost his business thousands of pounds not only in planning and consultancy fees but also lost income as he has not been able to refresh the outside of the building, leaving it looking threadbare.
West Suffolk Council said the paintwork would ‘fundamentally change’ the appearance of the building and the suggested colour was likely to be unacceptable.
When Ben started the process, on this day last year, he was originally told he did not require planning permission to paint the building, so he and his team started stripping back the old paint to get it ready.
But he said the planning debacle, combined with low winter temperatures making it impossible to paint, has left the building looking ‘like a wreck’ and people thinking it’s not open. “The front just looks like a building that no one cares about with nothing done to it, but we’ve done loads with it.
“It’s been done up on the inside and everyone is having a great time when they come, but we’re losing business because of it, and you just can’t lose business like that. I’m quite frustrated about this.”
The original signage application included details of the paintwork as Ben was under the impression this would be acceptable. But he was told several times the plans would be refused based on the paint colour.
Then, in July, he was told the paintwork would need to be in a separate planning application, which was then entered in August.
Ben said this left him languishing in planning refusal and error, wasting five months of his business’ time.
This was despite Mr Cunningham commissioning consultants Parker Planning Services to find a workable solution and discovering a frontage of the shop from 1910 which had the exact set up he wished to implement.
The building has a basement which is as yet unoccupied and could be used for an expansion of Sneaky Links, or something else entirely, but Mr Cunningham is unable to pursue this without the extra income.
“We’ve always got lots of plans, the basement could either be used for another nine holes of golf or something else new, but we need the money to be able to do those things. If we had the money, we may have been able to do more there.”
Mr Cunningham has said the business has now conceded to change things and would paint the front in white with black and red lettering, and was working to amend the paint application to reflect this, despite the white lettering on a black background being the business’ identity.
West Suffolk Council said it offers formal pre-application services to discuss if plans are likely to be compliant, and while in this case it was not used, at the start of the process the information Ben presented suggested the work would not fundamentally change the building’s appearance.
Then, when the signage plans were submitted and after the removal of existing paint, planners were made aware of an ‘original stone shopfront’, at which point it was determined planning permission for the paintwork was needed.
A spokesperson said the council advised Ben in March the outside paintwork would fundamentally alter the appearance of the building, so it would need planning permission and given the colour of the stonework, the suggested colour of paint would be unlikely to be acceptable.
“In late August the applicant submitted an application for this same dark brown colour scheme,” they said. “While this was due to be decided by 22 October, we have been trying to negotiate with the applicant in order that he amend his plans to a scheme in keeping with national and local planning policies for the conservation area.”
The spokesperson added under national planning law applications for signage and painting, shop fronts must be separate. They said the applicant was advised of this and the council could not circumvent that process ‘even if it wanted to’.
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