HUSBAND and wife team Scott and Karen Atkinson have suffered a blow in their bid to bring their mobile pizza kitchen to Knutsford.

The couple serve wood-fired pizza from their pizza kitchen on wheels, The Wildfire Pizza Company.

Scott, from Sandbach, is seeking a street trading consent from Cheshire East Council to operate the pizza kitchen in a number of towns in the area.

He would like to operate the business on the first and third Tuesdays of the month in Holmes Chapel, Wednesdays in Middlewich and Alsager, Thursdays in Congleton and Knutsford and Fridays in Sandbach, between 5pm and 9pm.

The mobile kitchen would run from a small car park on the north side of Parkway in Holmes Chapel and in Moorside in Knutsford, in a bay adjacent to the park.

The application for a street trading consent in Moorside sparked concern from Knutsford town councillors last night (Monday), when members of the planning and licensing committee recommended that Cheshire East Council should refuse the application.

Councillors raised a number of concerns about the application - the impact of the mobile pizza kitchen on existing town centre pizza businesses, litter, odour, noise and disturbance, potential road safety problems and the vehicle taking up parking spaces.

Cllr Peter Coan said: “We are here to support the town centre’s viability. We have lots of outlets in Knutsford for pizza, some of them less than 50 yards from where this van would be sited.

“This would be in direct competition to our established traders in the town, who I think we are morally bound to support.”

Cllr Stewart Gardiner, who is member of Friends of the Moor, said he was concerned that the mobile business would attract cars to an area where there was already parking problems, and it would be detrimental to trade at restaurants in the town.

Cllr Tony Dean said the mobile kitchen would take up at least two parking spaces.

Before the meeting Scott told the Guardian: “We pride ourselves in creating outstanding exciting pizza.

“Our ingredients are sourced from the best suppliers locally where possible, the remaining key ingredients are delivered direct from Italy.

“We are constantly on the lookout for new ideas, and as a result our menus are kept fresh and vibrant.

“We can be found trading in towns and villages across Cheshire from our Sandbach base.

“We will also be attending some fantastic summer events all across the north west, north Wales and the Midlands, from music festivals to weddings and everything in between.”