A businessman has been fighting a losing battle for eight years to turn Prince William‘s former search and rescue helicopter into a unique seaside café.
Ben Stonehouse, 34, has invested thousands of pounds into his café idea, only to see it repeatedly rejected by planners as a potential eyesore.
But despite being declared bankrupt two years ago, due to an unrelated failed business venture, he has stubbornly refused to admit defeat and is still hoping to find a site for the Sea King that is deemed acceptable to town hall bureaucrats.
Mr Stonehouse bought three helicopters for £250,000 and spent four years restoring them with authentic instrument panels and rotor blades.
His ‘café’ helicopter is currently one of two that has been converted to luxurious glamping accommodation at a campsite near Scarborough, North Yorkshire.
The Sea King XY589 was flown by ‘Flight Lieutenant Wales’ on 2 October 2010 for his first operational call-out as an RholAF search and rescue pilot.
Between 2010 and 2013, the Prince of Wales carried out 156 search and rescue operations from the Anglesey base, that resulted in 149 people being rescued, according to the Ministry of Defence.
The first application to convert XY589 into a cafe in 2017 was part of a redevelopment project at the site of the demolished Royal Albert Drive Cafe in Scarborough, which the council had earmarked for a scheme that must include holiday lets.
Mr Stonehouse paid thousands of pounds for plans to be drawn up for a £2 million development including eight holiday apartments, three penthouses, five two bedroom lets, three shops, two restaurants and the prince’s renovated helicopter as a cafe on the roof.
He said: ‘We had to put in holiday flats and restaurants. It was exactly what they asked for except the helicopter was on the roof as a cafe and bar overlooking the North Bay.
‘That was the only additional thing outside the tender scope and they would not entertain it. Daft stuff like that has been constant for all the years I have been trying to do it and I have lost count.
‘They just kept rejecting it over and over again.’
Mr Stonehouse said plans to put the helicopter café in front of the Grand Hotel in the seaside town and on a car park site were turned down flat.
‘Some of them never made it to official planning applications because the council rejected them outright,’ he said.
More than £1,200 was raised for the café project by a crowdfunding page before the scheme was knocked back.
Mr Stonehouse added: ‘The money from the crowdfunding did get spent on the helicopters. The money was offered back to the people because it did not go ahead.
‘I paid one chap back £750 out my own pocket because I wanted to do the right thing. A lot of people just told me to keep it.
‘It is just frustrating. I would like to see people enjoy what is a great bit of engineering and aviation history that deserves to be in the public eye.’
In 2021, he applied for consent to put the Sea King café and two other Sea Kings converted into glamping pods at a car park on the North York Moors above the Hole of Horcum beauty spot.
There would also have been six other camping pods and amenity block, but it was rejected.
One reason for refusal was ‘the incongruous form and nature of the helicopter structures proposed, combined with the impact of associated clutter of paths, outside tables, and fencing.’
Park ranger David Smith also objected: ‘The development, especially the helicopters, may well be a distraction to other road users and therefore create road safety issues.’
There was an objection from a nearby farm that the helicopters would be ‘unsightly’ and ‘uncharacteristic’ to the area.
It was feared the business would increase noise, and litter, hazardous to their livestock, and lead to drops in water pressure on a supply needed to feed their animals.
Chris France, Director of Planning for the North York Moors National Park, said the authority was supportive of small-scale glamping pods.
‘But that form of development in an area very prominent and open and surrounded by beautiful moorland was incongruous and conspicuous.
‘It is not the sort of development people would expect to see in a protected landscape.
‘People come to the North York Moors to get away from development they would see elsewhere. They want to be with nature and see wide open spaces.
‘It was in the middle of the moor. It has a viewpoint that looks over the Hole of Horcum. It is an amazing geological feature that people come to see.
‘They don’t want to turn around and see a load of helicopters as a café and glamping pods.’
North Yorkshire Council, which has replaced Scarborough Council, declined to comment on a historical decision by the former authority.
According to company house records, Mr Stonehouse was made bankrupt in December 2023 and the order was discharged a year later.
His helicopter café dream remains just that, although he still hopes of finding a place to put it.
One of the last remaining options in his home town is to include the helicopter café in the revamp of the Brunswick Shopping Centre – now nearly empty and infested by pigeons.
Whether planners agree this is a suitable location for a helicopter is a different matter.
