A “temporary” marquee can remain on a prominent city centre site until 2028 after planners argued the benefits would outweigh the harms.
The marquee on a car park next to Jinnah restaurant on Leeds Road was first installed during the Covid pandemic as a way for the business to maintain social distancing.
A condition of the approval was that the structure would have to be removed by late 2023.
With that deadline looming the company applied to Bradford Council to retain the marquee until the end of 2025 to allow the restaurant to play a role in Bradford’s City of Culture year.
That application was also granted.
Last year the business applied for the deadline for the marquee’s removal to be extended yet again – until 2028.
The new application said: “This request for a further three-year extension is necessary to allow the applicant, Jinnah Restaurant, adequate time to finalize and implement a new, permanent masterplan for the combined site.
“Jinnah Restaurant has recently acquired the adjacent site and is now in the process of developing a comprehensive masterplan which will ultimately replace the temporary marquee structure.
“The extension of the marquee’s use will be critical in providing the necessary operational stability and revenue while the more substantial investment is planned and executed for the new masterplan development on the combined site.”
Bradford Council Conservation Officers raised concerns about the plans, saying the marquee was “discordant features in the locality.”
They said it would be up to planners to decide whether the benefits of allowing the marquee to remain until 2028 outweigh the harm to the Conservation Area.
Planners have now approved the extension, saying: “The conservation team regard the existing marquee and adjoining structure as discordant features in the locality which do not sit comfortably in the context and are evident in the streetscape.
“Given the history of the site extending the temporary period for an additional three years will not harm the heritage assets or result in visual amenity over and above the current situation.
“Due to the applicants’ future plans to develop the site there are public benefits to this proposal.
“As this application is on a temporary basis the visual amenity harm caused to the character and appearance of the street scene from the siting of these large structures is deemed to be short lived, and no greater than the existing situation, with the public benefits that it provides from the future investment of the site, in this instance, outweighing the visual amenity harm caused.”
