Client
TGI Friday’s
Services
- Planning Consultancy
Caulmert’s planners have provided professional planning consultancy advice to TGI Friday’s for a number of years, and approx. five years ago, secured the change of use of part of the Royal Exchange buildings from retail (Class A1) to a restaurant (Class A3).
The building is Grade II Listed, located within St Ann’s conservation area and within a Primary Shopping Area.
Whilst officers at Manchester City Council were very much against the loss of a number of vacant retail units within the City centre, which would be used to form the restaurant, Caulmert’s planners carried out in depth surveys of the vacancy rates of surrounding shop premises and were able to demonstrate that there was insufficient demand for a continued retail use and that the proposed restaurant use would not only increase the footfall in the area, thereby increasing the vitality and viability of the area, but it would also bring back into use part of a vacant listed building.
Given the listed status of the building and its layout/appearance, Caulmert’s planners worked extensively with planning and conservation officers at the City Council, to negotiate an acceptable route through the building that would be suitable to install the required extract flue, with it terminating externally within one of the tower features on the roof.
Advertisement consent for the new signage scheme was also obtained.
Following the successful operation of the restaurant, Caulmert have recently been instructed by TGI Friday’s to secure planning and listed building consent for an extension of the existing restaurant use into the adjacent vacant premises, formerly a bank.