We have had a phone call from a local business man pointing out yet another Bath premises breaching the terms of their planning consent. On this occasion the breach concerns hours of operation. He had reported the breach to planning but their enforcement action had made little or no difference to the operation of the premises in question.
His question to us was why should he be constrained by his planning consent when competitors were ignoring theirs with seeming impunity.
We have seen this before with OPA and we warned then that the slowness of BANE’s enforcement processes would encourage others to ignore the terms of their consent.
We think it is time that BANES reviewed its procedures and adopt a far more “zero tolerance” attitude to breaches of planning consents and licensing conditions.