Bristol hospitality firms want to keep outdoor seating

Pub and cafe owners have issued a last minute plea to be able to keep tables and chairs on the road outside venues.

Temporary Covid rules allowing hospitality firms in Bristol to place outdoor seating and tables on the road will cease at the end of October.

Much of the space used for dining will then revert to parking bays.

More than 4,500 people have petitioned Bristol City Council to extend the rules but mayor Marvin Rees said the council was limited by the government.

The council is extending temporary pavement licences until September, meaning outdoor seating on pavements can be kept until then, but the tables will have to be removed.

Some businesses have warned of a huge financial blows if they lose their outdoor dining.

Brendan Murphy, co-founder of the Bristol Association of Restaurants, Bars and Independents (BARBI), which represents more than 450 venues and 11,000 hospitality workers, presented his petition to a full council meeting on 18 October.

He told councillors: "Now is not the time to further jeopardise independent Bristol hospitality businesses who have worked hard to survive the pandemic and keep staff in their jobs.

"We're asking for some parking bays to be suspended in order for independent hospitality businesses to survive.

"Without urgent intervention, hospitality will be decimated this winter."

Anna Swift owns and manages the Garden of Easton restaurant on St Marks Road. She said removing the restaurant's recently-installed outdoor area would be a "huge step backwards".

She said: "We've had many people say that their street feels safer, and there are a lot of clinically vulnerable people in Easton who are still shielding but feel that the Garden of Easton is one of the only places in the area that they can go to."

Bristol mayor Marvin Rees said the government had extended a law allowing hospitality businesses to use the pavement for outdoor seating for another year, but it did not allow the council to issue the temporary traffic orders that would allow parking bays to be used for dining.

He said: "We're sympathetic, we love what's happened and we moved incredibly quickly as an authority to support businesses to have that outside provision, but we have to work within the restrictions and opportunities presented by central government, over which we have little local discretion."

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