A NEW town centre café in Wellington has sparked concern about a loophole in planning enforcement which may need to be resolved at Government level.

Greggs bakery, in Fore Street, recently underwent a major refurbishment which saw the conversion of part of the shop to a café, which has already proven to be popular, as reported in last week’s Wellington Weekly.

The café initiative surprised Wellington town Councillor John Thorne, who did not recollect any mention of such development when a planning application by Greggs was discussed at the council’s March meeting.

Cllr Thorne decided to look into the matter further and discovered the shop had only received consent for A1 planning use, which allowed Greggs to sell food to be eaten off the premises.

A café or coffee shop-type development would require an A3 planning use, but to date Greggs has not applied for such a use.

Cllr Thorne said: “I can recall that only about three years ago the town council refused planning permission for the empty shoe shop on the corner of North Street to be turned into a coffee shop.

“The reason given at the time was that councillors wanted to ‘protect the integrity of the retail core’ of the town.

“It seems only reasonable, therefore, if a premises which is right in the centre of the ‘retail core’ is going to become a café, that councillors have the opportunity to be involved in the decision-making process.

“Especially so, when it is a Grade Two listed building and right in the middle of the town’s conservation area.”

Cllr Thorne raised his concern with the planning department of Taunton Deane Borough Council and was shocked to be told the authority considered the café to be an ancillary business use and it therefore did not require planning permission.

The Deane planners also told him that Greggs in Taunton traded as a café under the same circumstances and understood it was common to many of the company’s premises across the country.

Now, Cllr Thorne has asked Wellington’s MP Rebecca Pow to investigate the matter and suggested she could take it to the Planning Minister, Brandon Lewis, at the Department for Communities and Local Government.

Cllr Thorne said: “Using the logic applied by the Deane council, every premises in Wellington which sells food would be entitled to open a café or restaurant without planning permission, for instance, businesses such as Show Spice Indian takeaway or even the Co-op supermarket.

“This seems a nonsense, and even if Greggs similarly trades like this with a café in Taunton, I would say two ‘wrongs’ do not make a right, nor even 1,678 ‘wrongs’ if every one of the Greggs shops across the country was doing this.

“Greggs’ preliminary results for the year ended January, 2016, shows pre-tax profit up by 25 per cent to £73 million, so the company should easily be able to afford the cost of the necessary planning applications.”

Sara Humphries, of Greggs, who submitted the planning application for the Wellington refurbishment, was asked last week for comment, but had not replied at the time of going to press.