Councillor John Galvin denies falling asleep in planning meeting

Fulford cafe 52 Broadway applied for permission to build a permanent outdoor seating area in front of the business in Broadway - but the scheme was rejected at a meeting last month.

Yesterday the owners of the cafe said their temporary canopy had broken due to the windy weather and shared a screenshot from the webcast planning meeting alleging that Cllr John Galvin had fallen asleep while their application was being discussed.

In a post on Facebook, they said: "This is exactly why we put a planning application in, to make our seating area a safer place for our customers. We will now have to buy another canopy but this will happen time and time again. Luckily no one was hurt.

"And whilst we are on the subject, this was one of the York councillors asleep throughout our meeting."

The post had hundreds of likes, comments and shares on social media.

Cllr Galvin has denied that he fell asleep and said the application was refused following a democratic vote - which saw all councillors except for Cllr Denise Craghill vote to reject the plans.

He said: "I didn't go to sleep. There are occasions when I have felt like going to sleep in planning meetings but this wasn't one of them."

"It was always going to be a difficult one, there are considerations that we had to take into account."

The planning meeting had three items on the agenda and lasted for four hours and 45 minutes, with Theresa Burn from the cafe having to wait three-and-a-half hours to speak about the plans for 52 Broadway.

A total 106 letters of support for the scheme were received by the council and eight letters in objection to the scheme.

The application was refused on the ground that councillors were concerned about the impact on the house next door, that there would not be enough room on the pavement for people with pushchairs to get past and that the design of the shelter "would appear cramped in its setting and incongruous".