The owner of a Kentucky Fried Chicken shop has been fined £3,000 for failing to stop cooking smells wafting into the street.

Kelvin Welsh, director of Farnham-based Goldtree Ltd, which owns the shop in Blatchington Road, Hove, was also ordered to pay £1,512 costs at Brighton Magistrates' Court yesterday.

Len Batten, prosecuting on behalf of the city council, said residents first complained of the "distinctive" fried chicken smell in August, 2000.

One woman, who lives in nearby Clarendon Road, said the smell stopped her enjoying her garden.

Mr Batten said: "A council representative visited the woman's house and detected cooked chicken smells coming from the KFC premises."

The council served the shop with an abatement notice on June 21 last year, ordering proper ventilation equipment to be fitted by October 4.

However, by March 1 this year, no work had been done and the "fatty, greasy smell" continued to come from the premises.

Mr Welsh said: "My only defence is that for most of 2001 I was seriously ill and having regular blackouts.

"I spent the last couple of months of 2001 in intensive care. For ten days I was on a life support machine. Most people thought I was not going to survive."

He said his wife, from whom he has since separated, took over as director of the company during this time.

Magistrates said his illness was no excuse as his wife was still responsible for the day-to-day running of the business.