Restaurant fighting order to rip out its kitchen

Chichester District Council has issued an order to remove the ground floor kitchen area of Wildwood in South Street, Chichester as ‘inappropriate commercial use’.

Planning officers found the noise, disturbance and cooking fumes were ‘at odds with the enjoyment of the private amenities of the adjoining residential property’.

The row over the kitchen has continued for several years with initial enforcement action in 2016 on the basis the restaurant did not have the necessary planning permission.

At the time, Wildwood’s parent company, Tasty PLC, claimed drawings in planning documents ‘clearly showed’ the kitchen and there had been a ‘misunderstanding’.

The company then applied for retrospective planning permission, which was eventually denied by the council in autumn 2018.

In the current appeal, planning officers acknowledge listed building consent plans that indicate ‘the store area will be a kitchen’: “However, this consent does not authorise a change in the use of the store area as it purely relates to physical works to the listed building.”

Wildwood has a second kitchen on the first floor of the South Street restaurant.

Representations on the appeal (APP/L3815/C/18/3212527) are open until May 7.