A CHINESE restaurant will be allowed to expand next door into a former bridal shop after the plan was backed by councillors.

Singapore Restaurant in Friar Street will now move into the former Perfections Bridal Outlet which closed in April last year.

The expansion was approved by Worcester City Council planners in August but the decision was quashed two months later through a judicial review following a formal complaint from a neighbour.

It was decided, through the review, that the council had failed to take some of the objections by neighbour Graham Lock into account when its planning department had made a decision and a mistake had been made by the council over national planning policy and policies in the South Worcestershire Development Plan (SWDP).

The approval means the two grade II-listed buildings would be joined by a new walkway and would allow the restaurant to have around 40 more covers.

Councillor Jo Hodges said the expansion should be approved because it was in reaction to the needs of the public.

She said: “If you walk along Friar Street there is a wonderful array of businesses. If you walked along Friar Street 50 years ago it would have been quite different and the same 50 years before that.

“It is because of what the public wants is the reason we need to change the use of this building.

“We have a business that is trying to make use of the building which is surely far better than having an empty and vacant building which is also on the pedestrian level.”

Cllr Hodges said she felt the objections of Mr Lock had all been addressed by the council’s planners.

She added: “As far as I can see it won’t affect the most historic part of the building and the changes that would be made are all things that are necessary but are not actually going to change the historic part of the building.

“I don’t see how we can have any objection.”

The plan was backed unanimously by the city council’s planning committee at a meeting on Thursday (March 21).