A TAKEAWAY boss is fighting a decision to stop him opening a new fast food outlet on a troubled town centre street.

Rashid Ullah had a planning application to turn the Age Concern shop on Cross Church Street into a hot food takeaway rejected last year.

Kirklees Council’s planning sub-committee voted 7-6 to turn the plan down after hearing police had concerns about the number of takeaways on the street.

Officers said it had already reached “saturation point” and that the outlets acted as a magnet for early hours trouble.

While crime had dropped by a third in the town centre overall, it had gone up by 16% on Cross Church Street.

But Mr Ullah, who already runs Chicken Hut on Cross Church Street, has lodged an appeal with the Planning Inspectorate.

David Storrie, of town planning consultancy firm David Storrie Associates, is representing him.

He said: “It is our professional view that the appellant’s application was not given proper consideration by the council as the local planning authority and that they gave undue weight to concerns expressed by the police.

“It is clear that the root cause of anti-social behaviour in the area is alcohol-related alongside late openings of establishments serving alcohol.

“Takeaways do not serve alcohol and, in the case of our application, we were prepared to accept closing at 1am at the weekends.

“It seems that a genuine business is being constrained by the actions of others.”

The original planning application was rejected in October.

In its judgement, the planning sub-committee said: “The proposed takeaway, being situated in an area where there is already a high concentration of hot food takeaways and establishments serving alcohol, and in which there is already a significant incidence of late night crime and anti-social behaviour, would be liable to lead to a further increase in such problems.”

Mr Storrie said takeaways contributed to the mixture of businesses that made town centres vibrant and interesting.

“The suggestion that it would make the town centre unsafe is without foundation,” he said.

He added: “Like many towns throughout the country, Huddersfield is suffering with the recession as evident by longstanding empty shops within the town centre.

“The proposed development would bring a vacant unit back into productive use and provide employment.”

Sgt John McFadzean, of Huddersfield South Neighbourhood Policing Team, opposed the original application.

He said: “The police position remains the same. Our view is that there are too many takeaways on Cross Church Street.”