Residents living opposite the pizza delivery service raised concerns around drivers illegally parking outside their homes
A South East London Pizza Hut has been granted permission to stay open later despite concerns around the behaviour of delivery drivers.
Pizza Hut in Charlton Village applied to Greenwich Council to alter its premises licence and extend its late night hours until 1am Sunday to Thursday and until 2am on Fridays and Saturdays.
Instead the council has granted the pizza delivery service a slight opening hour extension. It can now sell takeaway pizzas until 12.30am Sunday to Thursday and until 1am on Fridays and Saturdays.
Greenwich Council’s Licensing Sub-Committee B imposed additional conditions on how the Pizza Hut must handle delivery drivers after granting the premises licence variation following its June 9 meeting.
Speaking at the meeting, Syed Hussain—operations manager for JJ & Team Ltd which operates 42 Pizza Hut delivery stores throughout London and the South East—clarified that those making the late night deliveries would only be third party drivers from Uber Eats and Deliveroo and not Pizza Hut’s own drivers.
He said: “Drivers are notified through their platform when the orders are ready. The intention is that they arrive, they collect the order and they leave immediately. They’re not required to wait outside the premises at all.”
He confirmed that Pizza Hut staff members would monitor the conduct of the delivery drivers and any drivers causing nuisance by making noise or parking on private driveways would be reported to their delivery platform and blocked from collecting orders.
Mr Hussain said that they had not encountered any problems with their drivers throughout the rest of their London stores.
JJ & Team Ltd director Kishore Jukhoop said: “We understand the nature of the issues raised and we are willing to comply and we have been doing so without any issues in various other boroughs.”
Cllr David Gardner spoke on behalf of Charlton Village residents at the meeting. He also said he had lived opposite the Pizza Hut store for the last 25 years.
He said: “Of all the takeaways we have in Charlton Village, this attracts the most illegal parking cases, the most litter and the lorry deliveries always come and park on the double yellow lines and hold up the buses and so forth.
Cllr Gardner argued that the “quite unreasonable” licence extension would result in more delivery drivers illegally parking near the Pizza Hut which would also result in more late night noise and disruption from the sound of the vehicles themselves.
Charlton Village resident Stephanie Godbold lives above the shops opposite the Pizza Hut and she said she had witnessed Pizza Hut delivery drivers parking illegally outside her home.
Ms Godbold’s main objection was due to noise. She said: “I live in a mixed residential and commercial area. I have to accept there’s going to be a certain level of noise, but I think it’s all about balance.
“The applicant has said that they want to serve their customers’ demands, but I don’t think a business has a right to just completely carry on serving customers’ demands in a completely unmitigated way and not take into account the quality of life of the people in their local community.”
In order to assuage these concerns around delivery drivers, the committee has told Pizza Hut Charlton that all its delivery drivers must conduct all their collections at a designated collection point to the rear of the business. Pizza Hut must also maintain a complaints log recording all complaints relating to delivery drivers.
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