TIMES are tough for traders of all kinds. And it would be nice to think that we are all doing everything we can to encourage new business and the creation of new jobs.
But this week, South Kesteven District Council’s planning committee members rejected plans for a new KFC restaurant in Harlaxton Road . . . because the style of the building isn’t to their taste.
Never mind the fact that the site for development is currently home to a total eyesore - a boarded up pub and accompanying windswept car park.
Never mind the fact that the site is in the shadow of a maltings tower that might very well be the ugliest building in Lincolnshire.
And never mind the fact that it’s across the road from a lumpy field and an empty haulage yard.
Our planners are insisting the developers go back to the drawing board. One even said: ‘if they don’t like it, they know where they can go!’
Is KFC really going to commission an architect to design a new building to please YOUR ‘expert’ planners?
Or are they going to take the aforementioned councillor at his word, and go to a town that’s happy to accept their business - and leave us with another derelict building to be slowly consumed by weeds?
One more thing: the real experts - the salaried officers who know how to plan towns properly - recommended it go ahead.