Planning Statement

Athol Park Guest House Athol Park Port Erin IM9 6EX

23rd August 2021 Dear Sirs,

We ran Southern Asia Chinese Takeaway in Port Erin successfully for six years before selling the business as a going concern over three years ago. We now own and run Athol Park Guest House in Athol Park, Port Erin (formerly The Anchorage). In the Guest House we offered our guests an optional evening meal, which could be either Chinese or English. We believed that Port Erin and the south could accommodate a sit-down Chinese Restaurant, and from many comments we have received, believed that this would be another success story for Port Erin. We submitted Planning Application 19/01284/C on 10th November 2019. The application was considered by the Planning Committee on 2nd March 2020, with everyone supporting our decision (Planning Officer, Planning Committee, Port Erin Commissioners, Highways, Manx Utilities & Isle of Man Fire & Rescue), which was due to become final at the beginning of April, before the Decision was appealed. The Appeals Hearing took place on 24th August 2020 (having been delayed due to CoVid-19), and the original decision was upheld in the Decision Notice dated 9th December 2020. In the Decision Notice, Condition 2 was changed from “No meals may be served to the public after 22:00 on any day. . . ” to “No non-resident customer of the restaurant shall be permitted to remain within the building after 21:00 on any day . . . “. The reason given for the alteration was the “Town and Country Planning (Change of Use) (Development) (No.2) Order”. We believe that this Order is for a “Change of Use” in certain parts of the major towns and villages as “Permitted Development” without having to submit an application, whereas we went through the Planning Application route, as Athol Park Guest House is outside the marked “Permitted Development” area for Port Erin.

Requiring all non-resident Customers to leave the premises by 21:00 results in us not being able to serve food past 20:30, or earlier, depending on the size of the party. This is difficult to achieve, and believe that it unnecessarily restricts our business, due to the time we have to stop cooking. Our restaurant is proving popular with local residents, and guests from further afield often arrive in Port Erin by bus.

We originally submitted an application for this in January 2021, and withdrew it in March 2021, as we had a number of letters opposing our application. We have now been open since 10th May, and have been successfully operating our new restaurant since then, counting a number of neighbours in Athol Park amongst our regular customers. We have received no complaints since we opened, and believe that the fear of the disturbance caused to the street by opening our restaurant to the public was unfounded.

This Application seeks a compromise between the two versions of “Condition 2” and we are proposing that all non-resident Customers leave the premises by 22:15, which means we would finish cooking between 21:15 and 21:30. We believe that this would be in line with other Restaurants / Public Houses in Port Erin, who stop taking orders for food at 21:00 and believe this is workable without causing a nuisance to either our neighbours or staying guests. We include the Indian Restaurant in Breagle Glen in our examples, as this is also in a residential location out of the town centre.

Yours Sincerely,

Redacted

Mr Alan Capon Athol Park Guest House

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Athol Park Guest House: Tel