A PLANNING application for office buildings to become a coffee shop have been approved. 

BearHug Coffee are set to come to Risca centre after an application to turn the Central Buildings at 33B Tredegar Street in Risca into a coffee shop was approved by Caerphilly Council's Planning Committee. 

The application, which detailed a proposal to open a coffee shop on the site of the vacant buildings five days a week from Tuesday to Saturday between the hours of 9am and 3pm, was submitted on Monday, January 15 by Ufuk Aslan on behalf of BearHug Coffee. 

The committee decided to approve the application on Wednesday, March 13, under certain conditions. 

The council has deemed that work on the development must begin within five years of the date that permission was officially granted, to comply with the provisions of Section 91 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. 

They also have said the development must be carried out in exact accordance with the documentation submitted as part of the application, including the proposed site plan. This is to ensure the development is only created in the manner which the local authority approved it. 

The final condition is that the coffee shop, as the "permitted use", will not be open to customers outside of the respected curfew times of between 7am and 11pm Monday to Saturday, and 7am to 10pm on Sunday. 

This is in the interests of the local residential amenity, in accordance with policy CW2 of the adopted Caerphilly County Borough Local Development Plan up to 2021. 

Caerphilly Council have also noted that the proposed development lies within a coal mining area, which could contain unrecorded coal mining hazards. 

The application is granted on the understanding that if any coal mining feature is encountered during development, then it should be reported immediately to the Coal Authority. 

The full application is still visible to the public on the Caerphilly County Borough Council Planning Portal under the reference code 24/0031/COU.