Pomegranate Restaurant's retrospective planning application for changes to its B-listed premises at 1 Antigua Street has been 'refused' with a recommendation to 'enforce' (Ref. 13/02520/LBC).
The firm had added illuminated signage to fanlights above the entrances, had attached striplighting and two menu boards to the front, and installed CCTV cameras and wooden basement decking on the Union Street elevation.
Staff were initially 'unaware that they needed planning consent for these proposals'.
Planning officials found that the alterations had a severe adverse impact on the special character and appearance of the building and that of the surrounding Conservation Area.
The word pomegranate derives from Latin and means seeded apple. The French variant pomme-grenade gave its name in the 16th century to the hand-grenade which, confusingly, was known in US slang of the Second World War as a pineapple.
A hand-grenade should not be confused with the culinary grenade which, since 1706, has – as we all know – been used to describe a spicy dish of veal-collops covered top and bottom with thin slices of bacon and containing six pigeons and a ragout in the middle.
Whilst momentarily disconcerting, a grenade tossed into an enemy trench has very little lasting military effect.
