THE Bombay Sapphire gin distillery could soon be getting a café to add to its complex, as part of plans submitted to Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council (BDBC).

The distillery has submitted plans for a café, making use of Building 18 on the site, in London Road, and changing it to a ground floor café.

Part of the submitted report from GWP Architecture said: “The proposed scheme includes the redevelopment and reuse of building 18 as a cafe at ground level. The cafe will consist of customer seating areas, a counter and servery, preparation kitchen and storage areas. This proposal also includes storage spaces at first floor level for the Bombay Spirit Company.”

Building 18 is the former workers cottages at the centre of the site, and are Grade II listed. The work is proposed to take place in two stages.

The first will be converting the ground floor into the café and the second will reinforce the existing first floor to make it capable of being used as storage.

The report continued: “The redevelopment of Building 18 provides an opportunity to bring the former workers cottages back to use and provide further valuable amenity for the Bombay Sapphire Visitor Centre. The majority of the ground and first floors are currently redundant / mothballed and do nothing to improve the economic viability of this part of site. It was always envisaged that, as a part of the original approvals, subsequent applications would be submitted to re-develop fully the remaining buildings on site.”

The new café would only be available to those who are already there and have booked in advance, as opposed to passing trade, with 44 seats being made available in the ground floor cafe. The report explains: “The new cafe facility will only be available to those visitors who have paid to access the Bombay Sapphire Visitor Centre. The cafe is therefore not open to public ‘walk in’ custom. Visitor admittance will continue to be controlled through ticket sales to help to ensure that visitor numbers do not exceed capacity, in line with current operations.”

The decision on the plans is yet to be made. To make a comment on the plans, go to the council’s website and use the planning code 17/03972/ FUL. The deadline for making a comment is January 9 2018.