A new expansion plan by Rye's Grapevine jazz bar has sparked opposition, only five months after its controversial bid to install outdoor seating on Conduit Hill was rejected by Rother District Council.
Key elements of the proposal involve using a rear courtyard behind 7 High Street (Customs House) as external seating for the bar's customers and to create a new commercial kitchen with fume extraction and ducting. The kitchen and a storeroom would be converted from a current lower ground floor residential flat.
However, in a comment to RDC, the senior Environmental Health officer said the failure of the planning application to state the hours that customers would be sitting in the courtyard created "the potential for such use to cause noise disturbance to neighbouring premises, particularly during the evening" and this meant he "could not recommend approval based on the detail currently available".
The bar won conditional approval to extend its opening time to 1am in late 2016.
Local residential and business neighbours have also lodged strong objections with RDC's planning division, claiming that the new proposal will generate more noise, greater disturbance from the bar's customers and produce unwanted kitchen odours, noise and vibration in a residential area.
One resident asserted there are already four restaurants in this part of the High Street and she claimed none of them have "proper flues at roof level". In a comment to RDC, the nearby Marco's Restaurant referred to "ongoing smoke and odour nuisance" from a separate restaurant, about which it had complained in late 2022.
Marco's claimed the new [Grapevine] implementation of a kitchen and extraction system would increase the amount of nuisance which means Marco's would be unable to use its windows for natural ventilation. The commenter also criticised the "industrial appearance" of the proposed fume extraction ducting.
Rye Conservation Society has also opposed the project on noise and disruption grounds, and the change of use to a commercial kitchen. It said the courtyard "seems an inappropriate area for outdoor seating".
Another neighbour questioned whether the Grapevine's current drink and music licence would extend to the external courtyard, which he asserted was intended for "quiet enjoyment".
Number 7 High Street is Grade II Listed and sits inside Rye Conservation Area. Amid recent controversy over the brickwork colour of the George Hotel, some residents are now openly asking why the Los Gringos 'Tex-Mex' restaurant in the High Street was allowed to paint its facade an unapproved yellow ochre inside the conservation area.
Ultimately, the planning disputes at this end of Rye's High Street are being created by commercial interests clashing with residents and even other businesses — raising the question of residents' rights to minimise noise, atmospheric pollution and disturbance. As high streets all over the UK adapt to changed circumstances, with more residential use occurring, such conflicts seem set to continue.
