Caffe Nero boss hails decision (From Craven Herald)

Caffe Nero boss hails decision

2:00pm Friday 13th July 2012 in News

Caffe Nero is looking forward to playing an active role in the town after winning its fight to stay open in Skipton.

Last week, an appeal inspector overruled the decision of Craven District Council to refuse the café permission to operate from the ground floor of its Sheep Street premises.

The council, which has a stringent policy restricting the number of ground floor cafés in the core retail area to 19 per cent, argued allowing Caffe Nero to remain open would open the floodgates to others and could destroy the town’s winning formula.

But the appeal inspector, Tim Belcher, said he could see no evidence of harm to the vitality of the town centre.

Neil Riding, managing director of Caffe Nero, said: “We are very pleased that the matter has been resolved; in particular that the inspector concluded that in his opinion “the coffee shop use of Nos. 40-42 does not result in any harm to the vitality of Skipton town centre or its core retail area”. I hope that we can now put the matter behind us and go on to play an active role in the local community and economy.”