Pub's patio heater victory
A licensee has won a battle to keep her patio heaters after a council originally rejected a planning application on environmental grounds.
Lara Read, licensee of the Heart and Hand, in Brighton, will be allowed to keep her three outdoor heaters - which cost £1,000 - after a government planning inspector overruled the council.
And Brighton and Hove City Council has today said it welcomes the "clarification" and is not "expecting to refuse these types of applications in the future".
It originally rejected the planning application, arguing the heaters did not conform with its policy for energy-efficient buildings and looked unsightly in a conservation area.
However after an appeal, government planning inspector Simon Emerson overturned the decision, saying it could threaten pub businesses.
He said there was "no more efficient way of keeping people warm outside".
"I do give some weight to the need for a business such as this to attract and retain customers," he added.
"On balance I consider that the proposal does not represent an inappropriately wasteful or inefficient use of energy."
Lara told The Publican: "It's fantastic news. Most of my customers are smokers so they're over the moon.
"We're running a business here and you need these heaters because it gets so cold in Brighton."
A spokesman for Brighton & Hove City Council said: "The policy we used as a basis to refuse the application deals with the need for energy efficiency in all sorts of developments. We felt that outside heaters were inefficient and therefore conflicted with this policy.
"However, we are happy to accept the decision of the Inspector as it provided us with some useful clarification and, as a result, we are not expecting to refuse these types of application in principle in the future."
