Sex Shop in East Harling

Chris Bottrell, of East Harling, already runs a wholesale operation importing and distributing porn videos across the country from a unit on the village's Cloverfield Industrial Estate at Lopham Road.

In November he was given a sex establishment licence by Breckland Council's general purposes committee to open a shop called Lush XXX on the first floor of the unit.

He still needs planning permission to change the use of the building to allow retail use. Breckland's development control committee will discuss the scheme on this week and planning officers are recommending approval.

Harling Parish Council has opposed the scheme and there have also been letters of objection from local people with a number of grounds for wanting the plan rejected, including lack of car parking, increased traffic, setting a precedent for retail use on the site, impact on nearby homes and claims that it is an inappropriate use in a rural community and it is neither wanted nor needed.

Bottrell said he had operated the wholesale business from the unit for three years without any complaints.

A report to councillors by planning officers says: While the moral and social concerns of the parish council are acknowledged, these issues are not ones that fall to be controlled through the planning system. In planning terms this application must be considered only on the basis of the merits of a retail use from a light industrial unit.

Officers will say that planning conditions could be imposed to restrict goods sold from the unit, hours of operation and access improvements.

A bid to expand an adult material import and distribution business to a sex shop in an industrial unit on the edge of a Norfolk village has been refused.

Chris Bottrell, of East Harling, hoped to open a
shop called Lush XXX to sell sex products to personal visitors and by internet sales and mail order.

But while Breckland Council's general purposes committee agreed to grant a sex establishment licence from 9.30am to 9.30pm, the council's development control committee on Monday refused to approve a change of planning permission.

Villagers who spoke against the proposal included the Reverend nutter Nigel Kinsella. Such is the nature of small villages no one from it will visit the shop because everyone else will find out, he said.

Another resident said opening the shop would bring unsavoury people into the village, the sort we want to keep out.

Bottrell produced a petition signed by more than 120 villagers who all wanted the sex shop to open.

Councillors were supposedly concerned the late opening hours would disturb villagers but Bottrell explained some things legally cannot be sold wholesale over the internet and instead must be sold personally.

Nigel Wilkin, a member of the development control committee, said that despite the proposal being recommended for planning permission, the council refuse it on the grounds there was not enough adequate parking and access for customers' vehicles and the council did not want to set the precedent for the rest of the units on the industrial estate to turn to retail.

Eight councillors voted for a ban and four against, so planning permission was refused.

Update: Permission to Try Again

22nd April 2008

An importer and distributor of adult products has made a new bid for a sex shop on the edge of a village.

Christopher Bottrell, who runs his Lush XXX business at the Cloverfield Industrial Estate in East Harling, wants to change the use of the first floor of his premises to become a shop.