Sutton Harbour green cafe receives planning permission

Planning permission has been granted for a new environmentally friendly café to be built on Quay Point, Sutton Harbour as the first part of the £75million masterplan launched last November.

The ‘real food kitchen’ will be selling natural food using locally sourced ingredients, bringing a new style of al fresco eating to Sutton Harbour, complementing the existing food and drink offering around the waterfront.

The café will be based in a contemporary open-sided building looking out towards the harbour, with a zinc roof and wood cladding.

The planning permission for the real food kitchen was submitted to Plymouth City Council by Sutton Harbour Holdings Plc, which owns the land where it will be built. The real food kitchen is expected to open early in the summer.

Jason Schofield, Chief Executive of Sutton Harbour Holdings said: “The real food kitchen will be a great addition to Sutton Harbour’s food and drink offering, giving visitors a chance to enjoy truly local produce in a relaxed setting with fantastic views. We want to promote Sutton Harbour as a nationally significant destination to bring more visitors to the area and boost the local economy. We are committed to supporting the regeneration of Plymouth’s waterfront and improving the leisure and retail offer of Sutton Harbour is a key part of that.”

The café will occupy one of 12 underused sites identified by Sutton Harbour Holdings in and around Sutton Harbour for potential development.

The aim is that new restaurants, cafés, shops, offices and apartments create a rival to the likes of Albert Dock in Liverpool and St Katharine Docks in the City of London.

The plans are backed by a new marketing and branding campaign urging visitors to ‘Experience Sutton Harbour’ as one of the UK’s most attractive waterfront locations.

Operated and managed by Phil Hague and Katie Easter, the real food kitchen will create five new jobs and will also run a number of green initiatives, including a local allotment scheme to source food from ‘earth to kitchen’ within an hour of harvesting, and donating any leftover produce from the café to local charities or homeless shelters.

Phil Hague, a classically trained chef who previously lectured for the faculty of business and leisure industries at City College Plymouth for 17 years, said: “We’re incredibly passionate about producing ‘real’ food, whilst protecting the environment and enriching the local economy. Plymouth has a thriving restaurant and café scene and we are hopeful that our individuality can only go to strengthen this.”

The café building has been designed to be moved with relative ease if required and proposals for an enclosed storage area for commercial bins near the