Pub couple concede defeat over brollies (From The Northern Echo)

Pub couple concede defeat over brollies

3:01am Tuesday 1st January 2008

• Print
• Email
• Share

A THREE-year planning row over Caribbean-style straw umbrellas outside a Yorkshire Dales pub has ended with the landlords agreeing to take down the brollies.

The Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority is expected to discuss next week whether to prosecute John and Collette Wormwell, who run the George and Dragon, in Aysgarth, Wensleydale.

But yesterday, Mrs Wormwell conceded defeat and confirmed that the parasols would be removed as soon as possible.

"The umbrellas have been popular, especially since the smoking ban came in, but they will just have to come down," she said. "For what we would have to pay to go to court, it's not worth it. It is a shame, though."

Following a complaint about the parasols in May 2004, the park authority issued an enforcement notice in July 2006, which was upheld by a planning inspector in May last year, following a public inquiry.

The notice required the couple to dismantle the straw and wood structures, which are set in concrete bases, by November 29, last year. A question over whether hibernating bats would be disturbed delayed the work until December and the Christmas period was so busy that there was no time to carry it out, said Mrs Wormwell.

The park authority told the couple in 2004 that planning permission was needed for the parasols and they submitted a retrospective application. It was refused because the planning committee ruled that the umbrellas harmed the setting of the 18th Century grade II-listed pub.

In a report to the committee next Tuesday, enforcement officer Marion Brown says: "The authority is concerned that the siting of the umbrellas detracts not only from the listed building, but has a detrimental impact on the amenity of the local area."

In their appeal against the subsequent enforcement notice, Mr and Mrs Wormwell said the umbrellas were no worse than the £2.2m headquarters which the authority had built at Bainbridge, four miles down the road.

They said that the exotic-looking sun canopies were constructed by locals craftsmen and their quirky appearance had attracted customers to the inn.

• Print
• Email
• Share