Planning permission has been granted for a new takeaway restaurant in Headington that is rumoured to become a KFC.

The ground floor premises at 1-3 Windmill Road used to be occupied by The Oxford Fine Food Store.

The store opened at the beginning of last year but closed soon afterwards due to high running costs including utility bills.

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A planning application was submitted to Oxford City Council by Agimude Ltd in January.

The permission was granted on April 12 on the condition that the restaurant and hot food takeaway would only operate between the hours of 11am and 11pm.

It also allows the new business to make alterations to the shop front.

There has been speculation among residents on social media that the new takeaway will be a KFC diner but this has not yet been confirmed by the restaurant chain.

City council spokesman Tony Ecclestone said in February: "All we have is the planning application and that doesn’t specify an end user."

There are KFC branches in Cowley Road, Cornmarket and at Templars retail park in Cowley.

In 2019, before the pandemic, KFC said it wanted to open at least nine new outlets in Oxfordshire.

The targeted areas were Summertown, Didcot, Abingdon and at the Sainsbury’s in Littlemore.

Most of the branches KFC wanted to open are drive-thrus, but a sit-down restaurant in Summertown was also planned. 

A spokesman for the company said at the time: "We have bold ambitions to have over 1,000 stores in the UK and Ireland by 2020.

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"We are looking to build over 50 new stores a year."

KFC was founded by Colonel Harland Sanders, who died in 1980.

He was an entrepreneur who began selling fried chicken from his roadside restaurant in Corbin, Kentucky, during the Great Depression

The fast-food restaurant chain is one of the most popular food chains with outlets across the UK.

There is a total of eight of the fried chicken restaurants across the county and most have received five-star food ratings from the Food Standards Agency.

KFC has been contacted for comment.