Plans for a pizza restaurant in Tilehurst have been approved at long last following its opening more than a year ago.
Vesuvio Pizzeria opened in Norcot Road last May, replacing a Coral betting shop that closed down 2020.
It has since been established as a restaurant serving authentic pizza and Mediterranean food, receiving a 4.8/5 rating from Google Reviews and a 4.5/5 score on TripAdvisor.
However, the restaurant operators faced a dispute over changes to the building being made without planning permission.
Changes involved the conversion of the betting shop into a restaurant and the installation of a front and side-mounted canopy providing patio-style dining space.
The operators applied for retrospective planning permission for the changes and additions made to the building.
The dispute became the subject of discussion of a Reading Borough Council licensing applications sub-committee meeting last March.
The meeting resulted in the operators being granted permission to sell alcohol until 11.30pm at the latest, and conduct takeaways until 2am each night.
But that licensing application was disputed by council planning officer David Brett, who pointed out that the change of use of the building was not established and required permission to protect neighbours from noise and disturbance.
The dispute has since been resolved with the council's planning department approving the changes.
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Changes to 20 Norcot Road were the subject of two planning applications.
The first, reference PL/23/0179, related to the installation of the canopies extending the restaurant area outwards.
During consideration of the application, planning officer Anthony Scholes took issue with the metal frame canopy.
Mr Scholes wrote: "The size, scale and appearance of the metal framed canopy is considered excessive and harmful to the character and appearance of the Tilehurst Triangle District Centre and appears intrusive to the wider frontage of units along Norcot Road.
"This has resulted in a loss of the open ‘centre use’ frontages along Norcot Road."
Ultimately, it was judged that a canopy would be acceptable as long as the metal frame canopy is replaced with a retractable canopy.
Additionally, measures to dampen noise and extract odours from the kitchen were deemed to be acceptable.
The second retrospective planning application, reference PL/23/0742, related to the advertising for Vesuvio Pizzeria, made up of black colouring, green letters and an image of a green ladle with red fire coming from it.
The brand design with two signs either side of the patio-style dining area.
Mr Scholes judged that the signs were acceptable, with both retrospective plans for Vesuvio Pizzeria being approved on Tuesday, November 5.
The business is named after Mount Vesuvius in Italy which erupted in 79 AD, destroying the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum.
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