Another officer said he wouldn’t like to comment on which impression is more accurate. He referred to one of the elevations and showed them the elevation that the painting was painted from.

The Chair, Cllr Mitchell said it’d been a very interesting site visit. He referred to the comments and questions of Cllr Johnston and Cllr Johnson. He talked about the hours. The petitioners interrupted the meeting and said they hadn’t spoken on six (in reference to the hours). The chair repeated that as he said at the beginning they would deal with both items five and six together and explained the procedure to them. The petitioners asked why they were only allowed five minutes for both items. The Chair responded with yes and explained he was trying to be fair and that there were other items on the agenda with petitions too.

He referred to Councillor Johnson’s amendment to 6. Cllr Johnson pointed out his amendment was to five and six. Cllr Johnson read out his amendment again, seconded by Cllr Keeley. The vote was (for item 5) three councillors voted for. There was a again a problem with the microphones. Cllr Mitchell and Cllr Realey proposed approval. The Chair was advised by the Borough Solicitor’s department not to have the order of the vote the way he wanted so it was switched round.

On five’s amendment, three councillors voted for, eight voted against. On the approval for five, eight councillors voted for with three against. Then he went onto item six. Cllr Johnson moved an amendment and was asked for reasons. After a delay he gave reasons stating the extra hour would be harmful to the wellbeing of residential properties to the NW and SE.

Cllr Mitchell moved approval, seconded by Cllr Realey. On 6’s amendment, three voted for with eight against. On 6’s approval, eight voted for with three against. It was pointed out that approving six transfers conditions to item 5.

So therefore, both items 5 and 6 were approved, so the Committee moved on to item 4.

Cllr Johnson referred to the Inspector’s report which mentioned limitations on the balcony to be used by patrons to prevent overlooking to residential properties. He moved onto item 6 regarding the extended hours. The Inspector considered conditions. He said the Inspector had considered it necessary to protect the living conditions, neighbours and character of the area through a condition. He also mentioned a reimposed condition to control noise which was modified to comply with the 11/95 circular. He said the view of the Inspector was that the extra hours shouldn’t be approved and there were enough grounds to refuse item 6.

He referred to the artistic drawing and said it had artistic licence as it’d take twenty years for the ivy to grow. He said they were not supposed to be commercial in the Greenbelt and said it should be refused as it was out of character and harmful to the appearance and character of the Greenbelt (policy GB2 of the Unitary Development Plan) and that the proposed alterations would give the appearance of a commercial use on the shore contrary to GB2 also. Cllr Keeley seconded this.

Cllr Mark Johnston asked how many car parking space there were? He also asked which was more accurate (or which was more misleading) the artist’s drawing or the less complimentary picture? He asked as the restaurant had the later opening hours, was this just to bring the extension into line?

The Chair asked the officers to answer the points.

The answers given to how many car parking spaces was that it was “quite a large car park”. He said he wouldn’t expect a significant impact on the highway and parking. One of the petitioners heckled from the audience “We do though”.