Owners of cafe built without permission in court

On the left, in the foreground, a long wooden gate is open towards the camera. Behind it, visible through the wide openings between the gate slats, is a grey, rough but flat driveway. To the right of the gate is a very basic, two-bar wooden fence, in front of which sits what look like stinging nettles. Four different sized wooden signs are nailed to the structure. On the gatepost is a small white sign which reads "private land" and something too small to be legible. Below it is a red sign that informs drivers of "no castle parking", below which are the logos for Jack & Jo's and Food & Watered and the words "parking only". Above the section of fence is a large yellow sign for Jack & Jo's Garden Products. It contains a large picture of some plants and a plea to visit a Facebook page. Below that are the opening times. Finally, above the Jack & Jo's sign, is a smaller white sign which, in dark blue, has the Fed & Watered logo phone number, with the ampersand in white sitting on a dark blue clip art-style watering can image.NCJ Media/LDRS

Gateshead Council has ordered the owners of Fed & Watered to demolish their cafe building

Daniel Holland
Local Democracy Reporting Service

A long-running legal battle over a cafe built without planning permission is to be heard at Crown Court.

The owners of Fed and Watered, based at the Jack and Jo's Plant Nurseries in Ryton, Gateshead, have been locked in a dispute with Gateshead Council.

The authority issued an enforcement notice in May 2023 ordering that the cafe and surrounding structures be demolished, after retrospective planning applications for the site were rejected.

At South Tyneside Magistrates' Court on Tuesday, mother and daughter Moira and Joanne Stanton denied being in breach of the order by failing to tear down the buildings.

Joanne Stanton, 54, of Hedgefield Cottages in Ryton, pleaded not guilty to being in contravention of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990.

Her mother, 78-year-old Moira Stanton of Middle Hedgefield Farm, also entered a not guilty plea to the same charge, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

Both requested their case be heard at Crown Court for trial and they are due to appear at Newcastle Crown Court on 6 May.

Ian Stanton, 72, also of Middle Hedgefield Farm, was due to appear in court on the same charge but was unable to attend on medical grounds and it was requested his case be deferred to a later date.

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