A businessman is threatening to close one of Chester ’s most popular tourism attractions after the council approved its own plan to create a commercial bin storage area outside his front door.
Peter Dentith will consider shutting the Dewa Roman Experience if the bin area is created in Pierpoint Lane, off Bridge Street, on the main thoroughfare leading to the main entrance.
“I’m serious,” he told The Chronicle. “If the smells affect us I will have no alternative.”
He worries ‘horrendous smells’ will drive tourists away from the museum which currently attracts more than 100,000 visitors a year, including many school parties, and employs 15 staff.
Mr Dentith added: “We’ve complained but they don’t want to know.”
Cheshire West and Chester Council aims to tidy up the storage of ugly bins at the rear of city centre shops and restaurants in Bridge Street. The move is supported by some but not all residents and several businesses.
Dewa Roman Experience manager Michael Lancaster agrees rejuvenation of the area is necessary but this is not the solution.
In an objection to the council, he wrote: “The area is desperate for regeneration but siting a bin storage enclosure in the immediate vicinity of a popular tourist attraction is taking a step backwards not forwards especially whilst the council has no effective way of dealing with companies who are evidently happy to soil their immediate environment.”
Mr Lancaster says the bin area isn’t large enough for the number of bins and suspects it will be poorly maintained based on experience. He fears the ‘unpleasant smell’ won’t be masked by the inclusion of honeysuckle, as suggested, and believes it will attract rats that will enter the building. The narrowing of the lane will create ‘a potentially intimidating environment’.
As an alternative, Mr Lancaster suggests using the ‘back half of the lane’ which faces out on to Pierpoint Court.
“This area is larger than the section chosen as the location for the waste storage site and could therefore provide more space for a greater number of bins. If the enclosure was situated on the plot of land to the side of our building as opposed to the front of it, the approach to the Dewa Roman Experience would suffer less from spillages and refuse trucks would be able to access the facility with ease, direct from Pierpoint Court.”
A council document states: “The intention is to reinstate the boundary wall to this service yard as part of wider public realm improvements and use this space for commercial waste storage, to support businesses operating within Bridge Street.”
It adds: “The site has the potential to form a small courtyard, delineating an attractive entrance point for the Dewa Experience, whilst encouraging re-use of vacant buildings in this area.”
