The owner of a Buckinghamshire fish and chip shop says he may consider selling up and leaving the area if the local council mandates the removal of a popular eat-in cabin.
Gav Singh installed the “removable object” in March this year on a car park he owns to celebrate 15 years of running Oysters Fish & Chips in Marlow Bottom. Despite costing £25,000, the cabin has become a hit with local customers, providing tables and stalls for 16 people to enjoy their takeaway fish and chips. However, since the container is situated on land designated as a car park, Buckinghamshire Council has objected to it occupying a parking space.
Gav comments: “The council are blaming me for taking up a car parking space but what I’m trying to reiterate is that there were no car parking spaces until I was asked by the council to tidy up the site a few years ago. I installed a one-way system with entry and no entry signs, and I put white lines down to create designated car parking bays, but unfortunately, it’s come back to bite me. I’ve tried to better the site. It’s very frustrating.”
Retrospective planning permission has since been applied for and Gav hopes the council listens to his and his customers’ claims that the unit has created a positive space for the local community and helped alleviate traffic concerns. “The cabin has resulted in car sharing,” says Gav. “We have people now who drive in together in teams from the local industrial estate, builders who come in at lunchtime, three or four of them in one lorry, families walking down instead of driving their cars. It’s reducing the number of vehicles to the site.
“And there’s no extra charge to eat in, no additional charge for the boxes, so it’s basically an add-on for our current customers. It’s tastefully done and it’s not imposing.
“I do understand because it stipulates it’s a car park to then go ahead and put something on there is a breach of the planning law, but the council are saying it’s a change of use. What I’m saying is how can something that takes up 7-10% of the car park be a change of use of the car park?”
If the decision doesn’t go Gav’s way he says it could lead him to reconsider his business despite 15 successful years in Marlow.
He adds: “Fish and chips have been good to me but it’s getting harder and harder and now, with all this, I will sell my shop and leave Marlow. I live 27 miles away and I’ve just sold another shop that I had seven miles from my house. I’ve got another one on lease, and I’ve got one that I run that’s on rent, which is nine miles from my house. That’s the best-performing shop. As much as I love Marlow, life goes on. We’ll do something else.”
The council will make a final decision on whether the unit can stay on 28th August.
