An award-winning burger chain has been granted planning permission to open a new restaurant in Bath with a courtyard bar.
The site that will be redeveloped for the new burger restaurant
Regarded as a cult brand, The Beefy Boys already has restaurants in Hereford, Shrewsbury and Cheltenham.
The company will be opening a new restaurant at No. 24 Milsom Street, on the corner with George Street.
The Grade II listed building was previously The Milsom restaurant and hotel which closed in February after being open for less than a year. Before that, it was the Loch Fyne restaurant.
The Beefy Boys applied to Bath & North East Somerset Council in July for planning permission, listed building consent and advertisement consent.
The proposed works include erecting a freestanding covered pergola, bar and decorative fireplace in the courtyard, fitting out the ground-floor restaurant, installing new heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HAVC) equipment, and adding new signage.
A report from the council’s planning officer said the scheme had been amended “a number of times” to address concerns and avoid adverse impact on the listed building.
The signage that’s now been approved is for two sets of non-illuminated letters to replace the signs for The Milsom – one on the Milsom Street side of the building, the other on the George Street side.
The advertisement proposals were amended to omit an illuminated menu box and numerous window stickers. The existing menu box is unauthorised and must be removed.
A condition has secured the removal of the existing, unauthorised HAVC equipment on the roof.
The owner of Persephone Books at nearby Edgar Buildings had voiced concern to the council about the “terrible” ventilator on the first-floor flat roof, and had even offered to pay herself for it to be removed.
In objecting to The Beefy Boys’ original plans in the summer, she had warned that her customers and tourists would be “offended” by the name and look of the proposed burger restaurant.
She had added: “We know and understand that the council tax is important to B&NES but surely it would be possible to run a restaurant without sticking up multiple signs saying The Beefy Boys and plastering it with pictures of hamburgers?
“If this is allowed to go through, Bath will be a laughing stock and its days as a World Heritage Site surely numbered.”
After the plans were revised, she wrote again, saying: “Everyone who works at Persephone Books opposite is delighted that huge black ventilator (that did not have planning permission) is going to be removed so that it can be replaced by a smaller ventilator set back a bit, which will, Persephone Books hope, not spoil the view of the Abbey from the first floor of 8 Edgar Buildings.
“When the black ventilator goes, a beautiful and magical view of the Abbey will be reinstated.”
With regard to the revised advertising signs, she said that “if they are not illuminated, and if paper versions are not plastered on every window, and if there are just two signs and they are discreetly positioned, then of course Persephone Books have no objection”.
The opening hours of the restaurant will be 8am to 11pm from Sunday to Wednesday, and 8am to midnight from Thursday to Saturday.
