‘Why did it become personal?’: furore over plans to expand Kent oyster shack

James Green’s oyster company owns a chunk of Whitstable’s shoreline but success has not brought affection from residents The clink of glasses and the lapping of the tide was punctuated by giggling toddlers and the slurp of oysters at tables populated by people gently sizzling on a baking day on the Kent seaside. But James Green, of the Whitstable Oyster Fishery Company, had the demeanour of a man who had found grit in his mollusc. “I don’t like to use the term but it is nimbyism,” he said. “Why did it become personal? I don’t know really. Because we’re a family business, it’s a relatively small town?” Green, 58, is the director of the WOFC, a company he inherited from his father and whose roots can be traced back to 1793. He has become embroiled in a battle over his plans for a seafood empire. The WOFC harvests about 2m oysters a year from Whitstable’s seabeds, half of which stay on the north Kent coast to be sold in the company’s hotel and the four restaurants it runs on the front. It is Green’s application to extend the seating of one of those restaurants, the Forge oyster shack, on to a patch of beach used to store boats belonging to members of the Whit