An entry for City Daily Photo’s Theme of Takeaways.
Abingdon has a number of takeaways selling kebabs. The grandfather of them all may be Sami’s Kebab Van on the Market Place (recently upgraded to a Trailer).
I read in the district council’s Street Trading Policy that “Sami’s kebab van trades in the Abingdon Market Place under a permission granted by the town council dating back to the 1970’s. It appears that when the street trading guidance was introduced in 1996 a decision was taken to grant the business grandfather rights.”
See Steve King’s comments for a fuller explanation …
If I may add a bit to that backstreeter, the situation was that way back in the 50’s/60’s & 70’s Mr & Mrs Savage of Shippon, operated a fleet of Hot Dog vans in Abingdon, Didcot, Wantage and Newbury, they were converted Morris Minor pick-ups and traded under the name of Fritzi hotdogs, everynight the Abingdon one would pull onto the market Place at around 6.00pm and stay there usually till around midnight. All was well until the council decided to update the Market Place and install bollards prohibiting vehicle access (including the hotdog vans) Mr Savage appealed to the council etc, with no success and so he took his complaint all the way to the House of Lords, who upheld his complaint, the council conceded and granted him licence to trade there, (I guess he sold that licence on to Sami on his retirement?) the case was a landmark case and is well documented and I think was responsible for one of the various market place acts ?
The Vales web site”
Street trading businesses in ‘prohibited’ areas in Vale
There are currently four businesses that trade within the Abingdon area which
operate on land that is designated as prohibited under the current guidance
document:
1. Sami’s kebab van trades in the Abingdon market place under a
permission granted by the town council dating back to the 1970’s. It
appears that when the street trading guidance was introduced in 1996
a decision was taken to grant the business grandfather rights.
2. Larman’s burger stall operates out of the B&Q car park serving the
surrounding industrial estate. It is unclear as to how long the stall has
been trading but it is a well established business.
3. Mr Whippy ice cream van trading out of Abbey Gardens car park. This
is an established business than seems to have been operating for over
40 years. As such, it pre-dates the current guidance and appears to
have been granted grandfather rights.
4. Mr Softee ice cream van operates out of the Fairacres retail park car
park at weekends; again it is unclear as to how long this van has
operated.
Thanks Steve.
Who needs ‘Wikipedia’ when you’ve got Steve? Well done Steve for the update.
Going to the House of Lords must have cost a bob or two; an extraordinary story!