A NEW coffee roasting business is to set up a base near Northwich after the council gave plans the green light to proceed.

Last year, Cheshire West and Chester Council received an application to change the use of part of an agricultural building off Caldwell's Gate Lane, in Arley, to a coffee roastery.

The applicant's son, who had been living in Brazil for eight years when the application was submitted, is intending to relocate to Cheshire to develop the new business at the site.

And now work can begin on converting the site to a coffee roastery after the council's planners granted permission earlier this month.

A planning statement, prepared by Civitas Planning Limited on behalf of the applicant, said: "The intention is for the family to develop a new business on site, roasting coffee.

"The finished product will then be sold online via subscription sales or wholesale to independent coffee shops.

"The applicant's son has been living in Brazil for eight years and has established a skill and knowledge base with contacts there and across South America and judges there is a continued market for small-batch products in the UK.

"This application seeks to make best use of an existing building that is currently redundant.

"The building is structurally sound and readily capable of conversion to use as coffee roastery, thereby reintroducing an economic use on this site again.

"It is considered that this proposal represents a comprehensive and sustainable re-development of this site which will not have a greater impact on the openness of the Green Belt, or the purposes of including land within the Green Belt than the existing development on site."

According to the planning statement, imported green coffee beans will be delivered to the site in 60kg bags every one or two months, with the processed product being collected from the site between one and five times a week.

It added the coffee will typically be roasted in batches, with each roast taking 20 to 30 minutes and the operational capacity of the machine is 12kg.

This means 10 batches a day would produce 120kg of roasted coffee and the roaster would run for approximately five hours. The planning statement says it is expected this would only take place once or twice a week.

The premises will be staffed by up to two people and will operate predominantly between 8am and 6pm Monday to Friday, although  occasional weekend working will be required.

This will take place between be 8am and 4pm on Saturdays and 10am and 4pm on Sundays or Bank Holidays.

For more details on the application, search reference 21/00747/FUL on the council's online planning portal.