A piece by Shona Lyons of the Church Street of Twickenham Facebook page.

This week has seen the arrival of the need for all of Church Street's restaurants, cafes, pubs and bars to have a pavement licence in order to continue serving Al Fresco meals and drinks. Apparently this brilliant piece of new legislation was brought into effect in July 2020 and was created in order to enable these kind of establishments to continue their businesses on al fresco basis during the pandemic. We all found about this just last Friday, as previously everyone had held 3 year "Al Fresco" licences tailor made I think by LBRuT just for Church Street (But I could be wrong).

But it seems that the council officers are making sure that the Church Street establishments adhere to this concept absolutely literally (which I am not at all sure is really the correct interpretation of this legislation, but I am not a lawyer, I am a travel agent so I don't really know and don't really have the time to find out either) and making sure that all the restaurant's tables do not go beyond the pavement which in almost every part of Church Street is just a meter wide. Some of the frontages of the restaurants are about 4 meters in length so the establishments are being asked to submit plans of where they plan to have their tables, as in previous years and these are all pretty much being rejected as having too many tables (but how else are they going to survive).

The council officers are saying that they do want to help the businesses but adhering to this literal & rigid interpretation of this law I don't think helps at all, because a food and beverage business cannot survive on a serving just a very few tables a day. In previous years the bars and restaurants had many tables out (as many of the other retails shops made agreements with the adjacent restaurants so that they could also use their spaces in the evening – we all worked as a community to help our businesses stay open) & could also serve inside as well, so it doesn't make sense that this summer they should have less tables when they can't serve inside at all for now because the council officers are telling them that they need to stay on their tiny part of the pavement just in front of their premises.

The government has allowed the hospitality businesses to open but if there isn't a feasible and understanding rationale from the council then they might as well stay closed and claim furlough, because this way their economy just won't work. The Eel Pie and the Twickenham Club have remained closed specifically because of this.

Apparently also the road needs to kept free at all times for a fire engine to drive in and for pedestrians. I have not seen that in any of the pictures I have seen of other London Borough's Street's Al Fresco dining where the tables seem to be wall to wall. I do think that safety needs to be paramount but we have had no accidents in all the years Al fresco has existed in Church Street (since 2005) so why would we have one now? I think that such a ridiculous concern with health and safety above everything else will mean the death of the hospitality business in this street which is very narrow so this insistence that a fire engine needs to be able to drive through at any time is really ridiculous. It means that no bar or restaurant can really have any tables out at all (& no fairs could ever take place either) – I thought initially in 2014 when the road was repaved the curb was kept very close to carriageway in order to facilitate Al Fresco dining using part of the carriageway too. There is hardly any pavement in Church Street anyway, so this adherence to everyone staying on their part of the pavement is just impossible.

But at least the firemen and the council officers will be able to keep their jobs even if no one else can and although Church Street has managed to fill every retail unit this year, it is not necessarily a given that it will be able to continue to do so in the future given these new rules. It has become a much loved community hub and the jewel in the crown of Twickenham because of the welcome it could offer the community in the way of events and hospitality but it looks worrying as if this will not be something that we will be allowed to continue.