A CRIME-hit jewellery firm has been ordered to remove a security shutter.

Smash and grab thieves have struck three times at Market Cross Jewellers, in Guisborough, east Cleveland.

But jeweller Roy Welch went to appeal after Redcar and Cleveland Council ordered the firm, which he co-owns, to remove the entire newly-fitted glazed shop front and integral solid steel shutter - both, the council said, installed without planning permission.

Now, following an inquiry, planning inspector Mr D H Brier has decided that, while the shop front is a "distinct improvement" on what it replaced and could stay, the shutter must go.

The inspector states in his report: "In what I regard as a sensitive location, the roller shutter detracts from, rather than preserves or enhances, the appearance of the area.

"My overall conclusion is that the retention of the roller shutter would have a detrimental effect upon the local street scene and would be contrary to the relevant provisions of the development plan."

The snatch and grab raids were all carried out against a previous shop the jewellers occupied, in Bakehouse Square, Guisborough.

Market Cross moved out of those premises and into a former bank, in the high street, that had stood empty for several years, and it was the alterations it carried out to this shop that were at the heart of the inquiry.

However, with 26 businesses in the area, all equipped with steel shutters - including the local pizza takeaway - the firm's owners say they remain at a loss to understand why their shutter must come down.

Mark Harkin, the firm's architect, told The Northern Echo: "We are hopeful the council will allow us some form of secure protection. We need some form of shuttering because removing £100,000 of jewellery out of sight every night could be counter productive."

Mr Welch said: "I am very disappointed. We have a very big petition and Ashok Kumar, the MP, wrote a letter. It is one of the best shop fronts on the high street, most of your readers would agree.

"There are 26 other shops in the high street with shutters and we have the records of recorded crime on shops without shutters and it is significant."

"We have six months to go back to the council with a remedy to the benefit of all."

As to the prospect of removing stock from the front window at the close of business each day, Fiona Turner, his business parnter, said: "It's going to be a nightmare. I don't think they like the look of the shutter at night - it's too solid."