Chapel Down gets go-ahead for £32 million winery and warehousing plan

Chapel Down, the Kent-based wine producer, has now secured permission for a new winery, part of a £32 million development at Canterbury Business Park, after it received the go-ahead from planners.

The scheme was originally approved by Canterbury City Council (CCC) in April this year but it later quashed its own decision after objectors threatened a judicial review of the approval.

READ MORE: Chapel Down takes aim at Moet with plans for new Canterbury winery

Now, it has been reported that CCC’s planning committee have voted to back the development, which involves a 11,900 sq m winery with associated parking and landscaping, and up to 8,000 sq m of warehousing.

Nine members voted in favour with four against.

Objections to the development have been centred around its location in an area of outstanding natural beauty (AONB).

In April this year, Kent Online reported that Katie Miller, planning manager for the Kent Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, had said the test of "exceptional" reasons for developing in the AONB had not been met.

"AONBs are afforded the same protection as our national parks and this scheme is not in the public interest, only that of the applicant," she had said.

At the meeting on Tuesday (July 25), when the scheme was approved, she reportedly said: "The expansion of the wine industry is neither a national nor local priority reflected in planning policy and the benefits could be delivered by development outside of the AONB."

But Chapel Down’s CEO, Andrew Carter, who attended the meeting, was quoted as saying: “Kent is our home and we have a mission to change the way the world thinks about English wine forever".

The company's Tenterden site, at Small Hythe Road, has the capacity for up to 2.5 million bottles of wine.

Carter explained: "In order to deliver our long term ambitions we require a purpose built winery facility with the capacity to produce at least 6 million bottles by 2032."

Defined Wine, the contract wine makers (they do not own vineyards), which already operates at the Canterbury Business Park, are also poised to benefit from the scheme, by getting extra warehousing.

Its CEO Henry Sugden was reported as saying: "Whilst I don’t know anyone who pays to visit a potato field, lots of people pay to visit vineyards and taste the wines, and so what that means is that visitors will come down to the local vineyards, stay potentially in Canterbury and they’ll eat in local pubs."

The committee was told that Chapel Down had looked at 89 sites across seven Kent districts and that this was the "most suitable".

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