A 'suffering' café owner has been ordered to remove decking after a saga she has labelled the 'most stressful time'. The Wrinkly Lettuce Café & Bistro on Main Road, Gedling, was refused retrospective planning permission for a garden decking area by Gedling Borough Council in December 2021.
And now an appeal against the decision has been dismissed by the Planning Inspectorate, meaning the decking will soon have to be torn up. The Government inspector echoed the local council's verdict that the impact on neighbours would be too much to approve the plans, commenting that customers of the café are able to look directly into the rear gardens of neighbours for an extended time, stating this increase in overlooking and loss of privacy was an "unacceptable impact on the living conditions of the occupiers of that property".
The bistro's owner had said the decision was unfair, with her not knowing the implications of initially applying to also change the use of the property to a mixed-use pub, as she claims was recommended by a council officer. Jan Newton, owner of Wrinkly Lettuce, said: "I have seen that it [the appeal] has been dismissed. The Government told us to get bums on seats in April 2021 so we got this done in Easter [last year].
