‘Planning constraints made L’Eree restaurant unviable’
PLANNING constraints have made a restaurant property at L’Eree an unviable location to operate from, a businessman has said.
Sahara City, which is based at La Trelade Hotel and also runs a takeaway at the North Plantation, opened a third outlet at the site of the former Kingfisher 2 chip shop in Les Sablons, St Peter’s, in October.
But owner Daniel Elsadany said he closed it after less than two months, saying the enterprise had cost him £15,000.
Under planning regulations, the business could operate between 11am and 10pm only and he said attempts to get it changed were unsuccessful.
‘It’s a remote location there and to make it viable as a business we would need to be open longer,’ Mr Elsadany said.
‘We wanted to open at 7am so we could serve breakfasts and things such as morning coffee.
‘And from the restaurant point of view, shutting by 10pm is too early.’
Mr Elsadany said Sahara City was well established as a business and he would have liked to have had a bakery there too.
He also had an issue with erecting signs on the building.
Although his proposed signage was the same size as had been used by previous operators, it was rejected by planning officers.
‘I was told that permission had never been granted for the original signs that had gone up in 2015, so why was no action taken before?’ said Mr Elsadany.
Jim Rowles, director of planning services at the States, said the premises were restricted to certain opening hours by the conditions of a previous planning permission granted when an application was made to change the site’s use to a chip shop.
This was to safeguard the reasonable amenities of the site’s close residential neighbours.
‘The current owner has been advised that an application could now be made to request a change in these hours to better suit the current establishment,’ he said.
‘An application would be advertised to enable public comment in the normal way and there would also be consultation with Environmental Health to ensure that no nuisance complaint would be likely as a result of the altered opening hours.’
As for the signage, he said current permissions allowed for a certain quantity, size and location of signs.
Replacements could be erected in this case without permission if of the same size.
‘However, some much larger replacements were erected by the current owner,’ Mr Rowles said.
‘The owner has been advised that they could either apply for permission to have the larger signs, or reduce the size of the signage to the dimensions of the former signage.
‘Similarly, if additional signs were proposed these can also be applied for.
‘The Planning Service has therefore offered advice consistent with the requirements of planning law which would enable the matter to be resolved.’
