THE owner of Seven’s Boat Shed restaurant in Poole Park says he won’t remove £8,000 of outside decking at his premises, despite a government planning inspector ruling against the scheme.

Eddie and Brenda Mitchell’s Black Label Events (Poole) Ltd had appealed to the Planning Inspectorate against Borough of Poole’s decision to refuse retrospective planning permission for the decking and an area of artificial grass.

While planning inspector Megan Thomas concluded the artificial grass posed no problem, she decided to side with Borough of Poole when it came to the decking, saying it “unduly harms the character and appearance of the designated heritage asset and discourages use of public open space”.

Now Poole’s planning committee chairman Cllr Phil Eades is calling for Mr Mitchell to “immediately remove this unauthorised structure”.

However, Mr Mitchell told the Daily Echo: “If Borough of Poole don’t want it there and they’d rather have a mud bath, they’d better come and take it down then.

“I’m not going to take it down, end of story. I’ve spent the best part of £8,000 putting it up so people can sit in comfort to eat.

“I’m trying to make the restaurant viable for the park. If anybody wants to go to Companies House to see how much it has cost me in losses they are welcome to do this.

“It’s up to the Borough of Poole to remove it if they want to take that approach.

“Nine times out of ten that area is covered in goose droppings, I’ve got ‘before’ photos of the area and it was simply unusable before we put the decking in.”

Objections to the development were made, last year, by the Branksome Park, Canford Cliffs and District Residents’ Association and in two letters.

Cllr Eades said: “The structure was built without the council’s permission either as a landlord or planning authority.

“The applicant should now immediately remove this structure and reinstate the open and accessible land that was there before.”