THE developers behind plans to turn a former church centre into a restaurant and bar have been told they must pay for a consultation into double yellow lines.

In August, an application was granted to demolish Birtenshaw Methodist Church and renovate the adjacent village hall in place of a Retreat Bar and Restaurant with parking spaces, on the condition that traffic orders were satisfied, including the addition of the lines in Wesley Street.

At a planning meeting yesterday, councillors refused requests from the developer to remove a condition of the order, meaning the new owners will need to pay for a consultation into double yellow lines that could cost as much as £5,000.

Representing the developers, Roy Potter said the opening of the new restaurant would have no impact on traffic and parking in surrounding streets because of the carpark set to be built on the site.

He added: “We don’t consider that it would help the surrounding area because we will not create any more traffic and our service is done entirely on site.”

However, councillors disagreed with this argument, saying that the original application to knock down the 143-year-old church was put in place because of assurances about traffic management made to ensure residents would not be negatively impacted by the new restaurant.

“If double yellow lines go down there will have to be a consultation and a traffic order, but I would say that the council should not fund this order,” explained cllr Nick Peel.

Council officers initial suggested that the condition should be removed because it does not agree with the reasons for making orders which are set out in the government National Planning Policy Framework.

But, following discussion, members unanimously voted to maintain the order.

This means the developers will now have to fund the costs of a review into traffic regulations on Wesley Street, which must be completed before the yellow lines can be installed.

As part of the work to demolish the church two war memorials were removed from the building and taken in by Bolton Museum.

The closure of the church, and the village hall, was announced last year and blamed on a dwindling congregation size and lack of people to carry out jobs at the site.

The church itself was demolished in August, while the hall will be renovated in order to make it suitable to house a restaurant.

Local interest groups had campaigned to stop the historic building from being torn down, but church officials decided that attendance was too low.