A Bath book shop owner is worried that her customers and tourists will be offended by the name and look of a burger restaurant that is planning to open in the city centre.
The site that will be redeveloped for the new burger restaurant
Earlier this month we reported that The Beefy Boys had put in plans to open a restaurant with a courtyard bar at 24 Milsom Street, on the corner with George Street.
The owner of the book shop at nearby Edgar Buildings has now written to Bath & North East Somerset Council to outline her concerns and highlight her fears for Bath’s reputation as a World Heritage Site if the proposals are approved.
24 Milsom Street was previously The Milsom restaurant and hotel but closed after less than a year. Before that, the Grade II listed building was the Loch Fyne restaurant.
Cult burger chain The Beefy Boys already has restaurants in Hereford, Shrewsbury and Cheltenham.
The company’s plans include works to the courtyard to erect a freestanding covered pergola, bar and a decorative fireplace, listed building consent to fit out the ground-floor restaurant, and advertisement consent for replacement signage.
No works are proposed to the upper floors and the application says the existing extract and ventilation system will be reused.
Writing on the council’s planning portal, the owner of Persephone says: “I object very strongly indeed to my shop and the people in it having to look at a sign saying The Beefy Boys.
“If permission is given for this I shall appeal. It is SO out of keeping with Bath and somehow the words are particularly ugly and gross.
“Bath Preservation Trust, please step in here (even though obviously this application comes at a time, early August, when so many people are away) in order to stop the elegant and marvellous houses in Edgar Buildings having to look at THE BEEFY BOYS. Even the people in the tourist bus will be offended by the sign.”
She also says: “Of course we should not allow the applicant to stick a picture of a hamburger on every window. In Bath! A World Heritage Site! One could think of a thousand places where this kind of ugly signage would not matter.
“Here, in George Street and Milsom Street (adjoining the house where Mary Wollstonecraft lived, which will have a plaque one day when any of us have the energy to campaign for one) it would be grotesque.”
She goes on: “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.”
She also highlights the “terrible” ventilator on the first-floor flat roof,” which does not have planning permission but somehow no one has made any effort to get it removed”.
She says she has offered to pay for its removal but cannot get anyone from the council or Bath Preservation Trust to respond to her emails.
Her objection also highlights: “It’s very sad that this corner of Bath is now entirely drinking places apart from my own shop, which, happily, brings people to the upper town during the day, but then we close at 6 when the drinking begins.”
A report submitted with The Beefy Boys’ application says the proposed works will not have any harmful impact on the heritage significance of the listed building or wider conservation area.
No comment from Bath Preservation Trust has, as yet, been posted on the planning portal.
Another objector says the number of restaurants in Bath has increased significantly over the years, which has significantly increased the amount of litter, attracting a “dramatic rise” in the numbers of rats and seagulls.
They add: “There are a multitude of burger restaurants in Bath already and it does not need another one.
“This dramatic rise in restaurants in Bath over the years demonstrates a worrying lack of imagination in the planning process of B&NES Council that diminishes the character of Bath.”
The council is due to make a decision by Tuesday 10th September.
