A FRIED chicken shop in a listed building has been given months to tear down an outdoor cold storage unit.

USA Fried Chicken in Wantage inhabits a Grade II-listed early 17th century cottage on Wallingford Street.

It is also in the Wantage Town Centre Conservation Area which restricts development further.

Despite this, the shop owners erected the cold storage building at the back of the premises without getting planning permission.

Historic England, which keeps the register of listed buildings, points out that the chicken shop and its neighbours on both sides – all built together and all listed – share a notable gabled roof.

It also says that number 24 – the chicken shop – has a historically significant 'chamfered beam and chamfered bressumer to an open fireplace in a chalk rubble stack'.

When it found out about the unlawful structure last year, Vale of White Horse District Council, the planning authority, issued the shop with a notice to take it down.

The business originally appealed against the order, but has now decided to withdraw its appeal.

A council spokesperson said: "On November 7, 2017, we served a planning enforcement notice on a cold storage structure which had been erected without permission at 24 Wallingford Street, a listed building in Wantage.

"The landowner has withdrawn their appeal against the enforcement notice and therefore now has until mid September to remove the unauthorised building."