A BUSINESS trying to open up the Bridgwater and Taunton Canal to more people can now serve alcohol on its premises.

Ryan Chorley runs the Somerset Boat Centre in North Newton, which provides training and recreation on the waterway for people in canoes, kayaks, narrow-boats and motorboats.

Mr Chorley is looking to expand his business by allowing the sale of alcohol on site, but ran into trouble with local planners over how his current buildings can be used.

Now Sedgemoor District Council has ruled he can serve such refreshments on site, provided strict safety measures are in place.

Mr Chorley told a licensing and gambling panel in Bridgwater on Tuesday afternoon (August 6) that he was “trying to do the right thing” and said his business was “robust”.

He added: “It’s becoming clear that people are seeing what we’ve created as a bit of a tourist destination to go to.

“We keep getting people asking us ‘can we get a glass of wine somewhere?’ – stuff like that.

“I’m absolutely passionate about what we’re trying to do down there – to really engage people with the canal, with Bridgwater and Taunton, and so far it’s going well.”

The centre’s physical buildings currently have planning permission for use as a training facility – with the current permission not allowing a bar to be installed and operated.

A planning application to allow this additional use has been submitted, but the council has not yet made a decision on it.

Mr Chorley said the sale of alcohol would not become a primary source of income for the business, and he had no aspirations of turning the centre into a canal-side pub.

He said: “I’m trying to create and maintain a professional standard of everything we do down there.

“I don’t want to create a pub – it’s not about that at all. It’s about providing and responding to our customers’ needs.

“I am being approached more and more now by people saying: ‘This is a brilliant setting, I’d like to have my birthday party here, what can you do?’.”

Planning officer Dawn de Vries said she would be more comfortable with a licence being granted if extra assurances could be added about keeping people safe near the canal.

She said: “We wonder whether additional conditions could be added about life buoys on the side of the river and how the level of risk will be supervised if the building is hired out.”

The panel voted to approve Mr Chorley’s licence provided life buoys and throw lines be provided, and no alcohol be served on the water save on skippered, crewed boats.