Controversial plans for a KFC takeaway in Cheam Village which attracted 700 letters of objection have been recommended for approval.

Plans have been submitted to Sutton Council to subdivide the existing ground floor of the old HSBC bank in 27 to 29 The Broadway and open part of it as a hot food takeaway store.

The council’s planning committee is set to make a decision at a meeting on Wednesday (February 21) after officers recommended it gets the go ahead despite a massive 700 letters of objection.

There were 11 letters in support.

The takeaway would seat 10 in a table of four and a bench of six and would employ 12 people full-time and 13 part-time. Its proposed opening hours would be 10am to 11pm Monday to Friday, 10am to midnight on Saturdays and 10.30am to 11pm on Sundays.

The objectors said there were already 24 hot food takeaways in Cheam Village and this would be too many. They said it would be out of character for the area and would impact on the setting of a listed building.

Among their other objections were claims it would increase the risk of traffic accidents, delivery vehicles may block the road and it was too close to Nonsuch High School for Girls and St Dunstan’s Primary School.

The lack of parking on the application, the objectors said, would be another issue – some claimed it would result in illegal parking in front of the doctor’s surgery nearby. However, in the consultation neither the council’s senior highways engineer nor TfL raised any objection.

In recommending it for approval, council officers wrote it would not result in ‘further erosion’ of retail units in Cheam Village or be an over concentration of takeaways. They said the alterations would not harm the appearance of the building and nor would it ‘result in any adverse impact to the safe operation of the public highway or result in overspill car parking to the surrounding area’.