‘It’s my only income’: Home baker battles Newham Council over cake business ban

A baker is fighting Newham Council’s order to stop running her business from her home.

Fatima Yusuf says she has been running her cake business, The Bakeress, since 2010 from her home kitchen in Claremont Road, Forest Gate, where she lives with her mum.

But now the council has ordered her to stop as she doesn’t have planning permission.

Fatima said the business is “my livelihood, my only income”.

She told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS): “We’re literally running a small home business and the council has never had a problem for over ten years.”

The council ordered Fatima to stop using her home as a bakery in a planning enforcement notice issued in August.

Planning law means planning permission needs to be sought to change the use of a property, even if the building itself hasn’t been altered.

It followed a complaint from a neighbour and an inspection from council planning officers.

The notice said the “introduction of a commercial use in a residential street which is located outside of any town or local centre” was unauthorised.

It added that this undermined “the success of nearby designated centres”. The Newham Council notice also said that the business caused “unacceptable harm” to neighbours “by reason of increased noise and disturbance from the bakery”.

Fatima said her business had never caused problems with neighbours before. She said: “We never make noise, there’s no car pollution.”

She has also collected signatures from 16 of her neighbours saying her business has never caused noise pollution or parking problems.

Fatima also said the inspection had been “very intrusive”. She said: “They went to my attic, my bathroom, my bedroom, my shed and my late father’s bedrom, which was very private.”

She said officers told her a neighbour had complained to the council about her running her business from her home.

However, one next door neighbour, Cathy Stack, said Fatima and her mum are “very quiet, pleasant, amenable neighbours”.

She said: “They haven’t turned it into a factory, or a kitchen or a shop. It’s still their family home. They are careful to keep it as unobtrusive as possible because it’s their house.”

Cathy added: “Yes, people do stop outside, but they go in, they come out, it’s minutes.

“You hear a few pans here and there, but you get that noise with people making breakfast.

“Where’s the evidence that it is causing major disruption?”

Fatima has appealed to the government’s Planning Inspectorate to overturn the enforcement notice.

The inspectorate will seek statements from her, the council and interested third parties before making a decision early next year.

The council told the LDRS it has a legal duty to investigate and take enforcement action against breaches of planning permission.

A council spokesperson said: “Our enforcement team learned that a home was being used as a commercial premises, without the required planning permission.

“The council has a legal duty to investigate any suspected changes of use under national planning legislation, and to enforce that legislation if a breach is found to have taken place.”

They added: “As is standard for such an investigation, the entire house was inspected.

“The owner was issued with an enforcement notice which includes details on how to appeal (including the option that planning permission ought to be granted for the change of use).”