Plans to turn Portswood hardware shop into Pepe's Peri Peri

Pepe’s Peri Peri is set to relocate to the other side of Portswood Road into the unit currently occupied by Portswood Hardware.

HKSA Trading Ltd, the company which runs the restaurant, submitted a planning application for a rear extension at 197 Portswood Road to facilitate the change of use of the ground floor of the premises to a takeaway.

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Cllr Marie Finn The proposal attracted objections from ward councillors and charity Southampton Mencap, which is based in a building accessed by a service lane that runs behind the application site and other businesses.

The scheme went before Southampton City Council’s planning committee on Tuesday, August 27.

Elly Iles, of Southampton Mencap, said the charity’s users rely heavily on car and taxi transport to access day services, evening and weekend clubs, play schemes and support networks.

“Ensuring uninterrupted access to our building is crucial as we operate throughout the week, including evenings and weekends,” Ms Iles said.

She said the lane has deteriorated over time, with frequent flooding, potholes and fly-tipping.

Ms Iles added: “Our service users have campaigned the council for help with this. They are just as incensed about the potholes and the appalling state of the alleyway.

“We feel that this application for another takeaway, and removal and the construction of a new rear extension will primarily mean that the increased traffic flow in the lane will add to already appalling state and the existing issues.”

Representing the applicant, Raza Sanaullah said Pepe’s Peri Peri’s current landlord at the Portswood Centre did not want to renew their lease when the current one expires in November.

“We have been open for 10 years,” Mr Sanaullah said. “The reason to relocate is not our choice.

“I would have loved to stay there but basically the only choices are either to relocate or close down and I wouldn’t want to close down because that would be a loss of jobs.”

Mr Sanaullah said he did not feel they would be adding anything in relation to noise, waste or pollution as the business already operated in the Portswood area.

He said: “I understand the concern that there are already quite a few restaurants and takeaways over there but we are not adding to the list, we are only relocating.”

Portswood Labour councillors Marie Finn and John Savage spoke in objection at the committee meeting.

Cllr Finn said Southampton Mencap users had to “long jump over very large puddles” in the lane during the winter months.

Cllr Savage focused his objection on the concentration of takeaway restaurants in the area. He said there was “just far too much of it”.

“While the applicant has said they’re just moving, the thing is that you’re creating another eatery, another place with that planning permission and there will be another place there that has extant planning permission so someone could open another one there,” Cllr Savage said.

The case officer, who recommended approval, said it was not reasonable to place a condition on planning permission to require HKSA Trading Ltd to improve the service lane, which was not a public highway.

“It is not the sole responsibility of that business to maintain it and we don’t have reasonable grounds to say they must do that as a subject to granting planning permission,” the officer said.

“Unfortunately it does really fall more into a civil matter which has to be resolved between the land owners although we have heard that Mencap have taken on the burden of that themselves unfortunately.”

The officer said there was currently no specific council policy on concentration of food establishments in a locality, adding it would be a “very subjective” judgement to say there were too many in Portswood.

Planning committee member Cllr Sue Blatchford said: “It is a private lane and all of the landowners will have to do something about it.

“It is not down to this particular application to do something about it and I can’t see anything we can do on this application. It wouldn’t be right to impose any particular controls at all.”

The committee unanimously approved the extension application.