We are very pleased - thanks to everyone for their efforts. Of course we are not through the woods yet...the planning application has been turned down on very solid reasons but of course they can appeal. As BCM said we are meeting a few Dominos directors next week to discuss their application, if they will appeal etc, we will put forward suggestions. People please feel free to PM BCM or myself with any suggestions. Or post on here.

There is a much bigger picture to all of this. Joffe and others are talking about it better being a Dominos rather than an empty unit. There are many issues here. - It would just be a web / telephone business with lots of delivery bikes causing noise and pollution in HOP. It would not being people to the parade to use the other shops. Also them coming to the parade could potentially put 2 other independent pizza places out of business, resulting in loss of jobs and livelihood. If Dominos had a new business model with a sit down restaurant - this would have NOT had this level of objections and probably would have been passed. The unit is just not suited to this type of business.

Another issue aside from this is the landlord of the parade has been systematically putting up rents and in the process crippling the independent businesses over the last couple of years, the empty shops are because of this very reason. Luckily some have managed to buy their units, but one of the shop keepers has had to go through arbitration lately as his rent doubled. The rents they have been asking are unreasonable....lordship lane kind of prices. If a unit gets rented out at a massive premium that will set the value for the others - pushing hard working independents out of business. We value our local shops and want to support them. So this planning application being turned down is good news for them in this sense. In reality there have been some reasonable offers go in for this unit BUT the landlord would rather it sit there empty until they get top dollar....they could not care less about Honor Oak Park Parade, just the bottom line. There is some interest in this unit now - will be interesting if the landlord is open to offers.