A TOWN centre restaurant has put in a fresh planning application to install a parasol outside its premises.

Pepper and Oz hit the headlines last year after owners Lynne and Pete Browne installed a purple parasol outside the Abbey Road restaurant.

Planners at Malvern Hills District Council told the couple they needed planning permission for the parasol, and to take down the striped awning that had previously been fixed above the shop front.

Mr and Mrs Brown put in retrospective planning applications, but at a council meeting last May, they were turned down fololwing a bungled voting procedure that one spectator dubbed "a total farce".

The couple gathered a good seal of public support, including strongly-worded letters in the Malvern Gazette and a petition with well over 1,100 signatures.

Since then, the Browns have been in discussion with MHDC planners about the parasol, which shelters an outdoor dining area on their forecourt.

The planning department has now conceded that no retrospective permission is needed for the removal of the old awning. It has also indicated that a parasol mounted on a removable stand might also need no permission.

So the Browns' latest application relates solely to a parasol with a fixed mounting in the ground. This would take up less space than a moveable stand and would not impede disabled access.

Mr Brown said: "We have been working with the local authority on this one, and we hope that it will be judged more sympathetically than last time."