'Eye catching' Essex cafe where people 'queue out the door' ordered to take down bright orange signs

The owner of a popular cafe in Leigh has been given six months to tear down eye-catching orange signs after installing them without planning permission. Dash!, on the corner of Broadway West, must remove its aluminium shopfront, signs and awning after Southend’s development control committee unanimously agreed enforcement action after deeming “significant harm” had been caused to the character of the conservation area.

Carol Mulroney, Lib Dem councillor for Leigh Ward, said photographs from 100 years ago showed sloping awnings in the parade of shops opposite St Clement’s Church.

She said: “That’s an incredible busy corner and now there are tables and chairs there it narrows that element as well. I support this because that is a really focal point of the conservation area at the triangle with the church and the other corner is another old corner. I think the awnings make a tremendous difference.

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The committee heard long queues often formed at a hatch in the frontage where ice cream is served at one of Leigh’s busiest cafes, which boasts five star reviews.

Richard Longstaff, Green Party councillor for Leigh Ward, said: “It’s an incredibly busy junction and a focal point for the street scene. This popped up almost overnight. While I’m guilty of my daughter stopping for an ice cream at the hatch it just seems to be in the way of everybody.

“It’s a busy zebra crossing, there’s people with pushchairs. It just seems incongruous and impractical to have people queuing at that hatch. It’s like Piccadilly Circus. We do need to maintain our conservation areas. If we don’t enforce that it’s just a slow creep and all of a sudden we’ve lost the character of a place.”

A planning application for installing a new shopfront to the unit was rejected in December 2022, and another application to retain its metal shopfront and awnings and install various moulded timber panels was rejected in July 2023.

An appeal against the Council’s decision for the 2023 Application was submitted to the Planning Inspectorate in February 2024. This was dismissed in May 2024.