The Park Brewery plans for new restaurant and taproom venue near Richmond Park

By Heather Nicholls

5th Oct 2023 | Local News

The Park Brewery. (Photo Credit: Google Maps).
The Park Brewery. (Photo Credit: Google Maps).

A brewery has revealed plans to open a new restaurant and taproom close to Richmond Park to give the neighbourhood more of a "villagey feel".

Park Brew and Kitchen would open on Park Road in Kingston and serve food including brunch, along with booze, and have outdoor seating under the plans.

Local couple Josh and Frankie Kearns, founders of Kingston-based The Park Brewery, discussed their plans for the new venue at Kingston Council's licensing committee on October 3.

Mr Kearns said the venue would be a "community destination for people to get some really great food" with the option of selling booze, rather than this being the focus, and that making sure it did not negatively impact locals would be at the top of their agenda.

He said: "It is a destination for food so we'll be serving breakfast, brunch and small plate dinner, and there will always be a substantial amount of food available during the hours."

Mr Kearns said the venue would be insulated to minimise any noise, its windows did not open and it would be served by commercial waste collections twice a week.

He said they planned to create a small outdoor seating area which could be used until 10pm, with no customers allowed outside after this point, and the furniture would be taken inside at the end of every night.

Ms Kearns added: "We're very familiar with the area and we think it's actually going to be [a] hugely valuable asset and a great thing for the community and that's the feedback we're receiving a lot from neighbours and people in the area who are quite excited about it.

"We will respect it and we will look after this place and consider our neighbours because we're here too and we love it here, so we know that it's a quiet area, but we see that there's a real opportunity here to create more of a villagey feel which we think we're lacking."

She said conditions on the proposed licence included the venue having CCTV, an incident log book and staff training.

But neighbours raised concerns about the proposed location of the venue at the meeting. Local Jackie Hird said: "I don't think it's going to be quiet with people sitting outside and our children are in a critical stage in their education and we are concerned about the noise."

She added: "After 6.30pm anyone can park and we understand we don't have the right to park, but that's a lot of cars potentially coming and going when there's children – it's a residential area, a lot of schools in the area, a lot of children so we're concerned about the safety of the extra traffic as well as the noise."

Phil Lomas, another objector, raised concerns residents would be disturbed by noise from the venue and that they would find it more difficult to park. He added he was worried about safety as the venue sat on a "very tight corner" which was busy and only had a "small amount of space" to the curb.

Caroline McCall also said she was not opposed to the business in principle but "very much against the location". She said the corner where the venue would be located seemed "a mad place to have any idea of having outdoor seating because of those concerns about the traffic".

But Suzanne Wilkinson said she believed the area would "benefit from somewhere that will be safe and convenient to socialise and will be owned and operated by a very enterprising, very local couple who've already demonstrated how a successful business venture can be integrated within the local community in their brewery operation".

Responding to the concerns raised, Ms Kearns said the venue was aimed at locals so many customers would walk there rather than drive. Mr Kearns added that only around 35 people would be able to fit into the venue at any given time.

The venue would be able to sell booze for consumption on and off the premises from 11am to 10pm on Sundays to Mondays, and from 11am to 11pm on Tuesdays to Saturdays, if the licence is granted.

The committee will publish its decision on the application in the coming days.

     

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