Notcutts Pembury Wants to Rework Its Approved Extension Into a New Restaurant and Shop

Notcutts Garden Centre in Pembury has applied to redesign the extension it was granted permission for back in 2018 - swapping the single L-shaped building originally approved for two smaller, separately designed ones either side of the same footprint: a glazed restaurant with its own courtyard seating, and a shop next door. The application, filed with Tunbridge Wells Borough Council on 6 October, is still awaiting a decision.

The application (ref. 26/02213/FULL) is a variation of condition 2 of the 2018 permission, and covers two extensions rather than one: a restaurant of around 76 square metres with roughly 50 covers plus external seating, and a separate retail extension of 102 square metres with its own entrance and signage, built along the same facade line as the restaurant next to it. The architects, KLH Architects, say in their Design and Access Statement that the change "looks to reduce the footprint of the proposed extension as well as refine the overall design and quality of the build" compared with the single building approved in 2018.

The proposed restaurant is single-storey, around 3.3m high, with full-height glazing and a flat roof with a minimal verge, which the architects describe as giving it a "light-weight appearance" that avoids overwhelming its courtyard setting. The final concept adds a single-storey living (green) wall for what the statement calls biophilic design - visual and environmental benefits tied to the site's horticultural purpose - plus external high-level timber louvres for solar shading, and roof detailing that echoes the existing gable form of the garden centre's main building. The retail extension adopts the same glazing and roof language, with some elevational changes to establish its entrance as a clearer focal point for visitors arriving from the car park.

The 2018 permission being revised here wasn't just for this extension. The original application, 18/03542/FULL, covered a wider refurbishment of the site: improvements to the front entrance, rationalisation and formalisation of the existing overflow car park, a new polytunnel/canopy, a new feature garden, reconfiguration of the existing play area, and work to the planteria and associated storage area. This latest application only revisits the restaurant and retail building within that already-approved package, not the rest of it.

Notcutts has sat on this Tonbridge Road site for decades, and council records show planning applications going back to 1981 - for car parking, greenhouses, canopies, a telecoms mast and successive garden centre buildings - the large majority of which have been permitted. The only applications withdrawn outright were a proposed new garden centre in 1989 and an extension to the centre first lodged in 2018, which was later approved in 2019 on revised plans. The site itself sits within the protected Metropolitan Green Belt and on the boundary of, though outside, the High Weald National Landscape.

The application remains open, with no decision date set. Two statutory consultees have responded so far - Kent County Council's Flood & Water Management team on 16 October and KCC Highways on 20 October - with nothing in the file at this stage indicating an objection from either. Source: Tunbridge Wells Borough Council planning register, ref. 26/02213/FULL, related case 18/03542/FULL