A pub in the West Meon area has submitted a planning application to provide additional parking for customers.

Caffeine & Machine, located at the junction with the A272 and A32, is proposing to reconfigure the existing car park and create extra spaces. Public consultation on the plans is open till Monday, May 12.

According to official planning documents, the current car park only accommodates 16 vehicles with informing parking on a gravel area.

The business serves as a coffee house, licensed bar and restaurant and hosts automotive themed evenings and weekends and charity events.

The planning, design and access statement says: “As the business is now up and running, the need for the reconfiguration of existing car park and its expansion to provide additional car parking to serve the existing business is evident.

“The pub is a substantial building with capacity for 140 covers inside and additional covers within the large garden. It is however currently served by only 16 spaces in the car park to the north of the building and an informal parking area to the east which is inadequate for a business of this size and in this location.”

Winchester City Council’s landscape assessment said it would be “unfortunate to lose the wilder vegetation next to the A272 that now contains some tree species, shrubs and herbaceous plants”.

But the application’s biodiversity net gain report says metric calculations have “identified that the proposed scheme would result in over +10% Biodiversity Net Gain, complying with the current Local Planning policy, subsequent to the provision of legal agreement / conservation covenant, to ensure that the proposed habitats are delivered for at least 30 years”.

For more information, visit https://tinyurl.com/car-parking-plans.