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29
Oct
Harrogate villagers bid to set up online wine business from home
Two Harrogate district residents have applied for permission to use their home for a new online wine business.
Charley Battles and Sophie Battles are directors of newly registered company Hidden Wines Ltd.
They have applied to North Yorkshire Council for a premises licence to store wine in the garage of their semi-detached home at Crawford Close, Tockwith, which is between Knaresborough and York.
The council’s statutory licensing committee will decide whether to grant their application on Friday. You can read council documents relating to the application here.
A report to councillors on the committee describes the premises as a three-bedroom detached house with garage on a corner plot of a quiet cul-de-sac. The garage, it adds, would be used to store the alcohol, which will only be sold via an online wine store.
No authorities have raised any concerns and the report says three similar online ventures granted permission to operate from home in the Harrogate and Selby districts in 2021 have not received any complaints.
But two nearby residents have objected. Garry Sheerins said the cul-de-sac is already congested and suggests the applicants rent premises at a nearby trading estate.
Phillippa Naylor raised concerns about extra traffic and “the risk that such a business could attract undesirable people to this previously quiet location”.
The Hidden Wines owners replied to the complainants by saying this was a start-up business that expected to make no more than one or two deliveries a week and two or three collections a week for the first couple of years. They added:
Our business model is not designed to appeal to the masses but a smaller niche of customers that are interested in trying wines from lesser well-known regions.
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