Late night takeaways coming to Bracknell shortly
It's after a famous fast-food brand cleared one of the last hurdles to opening until 2am
Late-night chicken takeaways seem set to arrive in Bracknell very shortly after a famous fast-food brand cleared one of the last hurdles to opening until 2am.
KFC on Bagshot Road (A322) who already had conditional planning permission to open late, secured a premises licence at a licensing panel meeting held at Bracknell Forest Council on Wednesday, June 10.
As soon as final concerns about noise and car parking are ironed out with the planning committee, KFC will have all the authorisation they need to open until two o’clock in the morning.
Councillor Patrick Smith, chairing the meeting, said: “The panel gave serious consideration to the concerns raised by the objectors, but felt on balance that these would be sufficiently ameliorated by conditions that were applied to the licence.”
The licence marks the second-to-last hurdle for the restaurant, which now only needs to resolve outstanding issues around noise and car parking through the planning process before it can implement the extended hours.
The restaurant is currently permitted to operate from 7am until 11pm, and the operator wants to extend drive-thru trading until 2am.
While KFC has already been granted planning permission for extended opening hours, it also required a premises licence for late-night operation, with the two regimes determined separately by different council committees.
The planning committee is handling the last conditions on KFC’s late night opening, with measures concentrating on limiting use of the car park to 10 minutes after 11pm. A large part of the KFC car park is behind a gate which staff can close and most of the remaining spaces will be the ones used by staff.
Two planning officers and an environmental health officer attended the licensing panel, with councillors keen to hear their input. Planning and licensing functions have been working in parallel with the applicant on the proposals.
By day, there is easy access to the fast-food restaurant for pedestrians and cyclists, not only from the west of Bagshot Road, but also from the east through a subway linking Nightingale Crescent, Hunter Way and Elizabeth Close in Harmans Water.
However, at night and by car, access is more limited, with vehicles only able to enter the site when travelling northbound from Birch Hill and the Sports Centre towards the town centre.
Southbound traffic has to loop first around the sports centre roundabout to reach KFC then loop again round the Horse and Groom roundabout to get back.
The licence application provoked two formal objections raising concerns about the impact on nearby residents.
But despite these concerns, the panel determined that conditions attached to the licence would adequately mitigate the impact.