Cowley Club, in London Road, Brighton, wants new shutters

The Cowley Club, in London Road, Brighton, said that staff regularly opened the doors to find human waste and drugs paraphernalia after people sheltered in the recessed doorway at night.

But Brighton and Hove City Council officials have published a report advising the council’s planning committee to refuse to grant planning permission for a shutter at a meeting next week.

The club said that it installed wooden boards on the shop front to protect the windows after a series of attacks on the venue.

Club secretary Ian Bros said that the club wanted the same treatment as Oxfam, in St James’s Street, which was granted planning permission for a roller shutter for its recessed doorway.

Mr Bros said: “All too often volunteers having to open up the premises have had to try to move rough-sleepers or, more frequently, their discarded bedding or other abandoned property before they could gain access to the front door of the club.

“Or they have had to call an ambulance because someone has collapsed in the doorway and is unable to move due to the consumption of drugs.

“We are also regularly confronted on arrival by pools of urine and even deposits of human faeces or discarded drug paraphernalia.

“Club users and café customers should not have to enter the building via a doorway that stinks of piss and our volunteers should not have to face the health hazards of repeatedly having to clean up human excreta or pick up discarded sharps.

“In addition, a significant number of our volunteers have a disability of one sort or another and are simply unable to take on such tasks, never mind be physically able to put up or take down the heavy plywood boards that we are so desperate to replace.”

The application states the club is not “insensitive” to rough sleepers even though it wants people out of the doorway.

Since installing the boards three years ago, the club has experienced little graffiti on its shop front.

The proposed electric roller shutter would be painted with grey graffiti-proof paint in a barbed wire design breaking up to free birds.

The Cowley Club want similar shutters to Oxfam in St James's Street

It would include wording related to the Cowley Club’s commitment “for a social system based on mutual aid and voluntary co-operation against all forms of oppression”.

The design is similar to the boards already in place.

A report to the planning committee said that the shutter would “harm the appearance of the building”.

It said: “The shutter would obscure the shop front and window display when down, creating an unsightly, passive appearance to the frontage, harming the visual amenity of the building and surrounding area and the vitality of the wider shopping street.

“Furthermore, the shutter housing would be poorly located and would fail to respect the architectural features of the shopfront resulting in an unsightly feature even when the roller shutter is retracted.”

The Cowley Club said that many shops along London Road had roller blinds and those with graffiti-style paintings did not experience tagging.

A neighbouring business has provided one of 23 letters of support although the council redacted the corroborative details on its website.

The business said: “We had similar troubles with the back of our shop until a security fence was erected and it is a much pleasanter environment for myself and volunteers to work in.

“I imagine the same would be true for the Cowley Club, which is purely staffed by volunteers who should not have to deal with cleaning up human waste before being able to open the premises.”

The planning committee is due to meet at 2pm on Wednesday 4 May to decide the matter. The meeting is scheduled to be webcast on the council’s website.