Morpeth restaurant thanks customers after permanently closing its doors
A Morpeth restaurant has permanently closed its doors.
The final night for Mulan in High Stanners took place last Saturday. The Chinese restaurant had been in business for 19 years.
The closure was announced in a Facebook post on Saturday night. The post also included the following: “We’ve known we’d be closing for a little while now and didn’t want to make a big fanfare about our final days. We’ve been incredibly lucky to meet so many wonderful people through these doors over the years.
“Thank you to all the regulars and not-so-regulars we’ve seen over the years.
“From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for supporting a family business for nearly two decades. We’ll always be grateful for the kindness and loyalty you showed us.”
The large building that includes Mulan and the former Riverside Lodge social club was the subject of a planning application by Incrementum NE Ltd to demolish it and build 19 residential apartments.
More than 200 objections were lodged against the bid. However, there were also 37 letters of support. It was turned down by Northumberland County Council in July 2025.
Various reasons for refusal were given by planning officers under delegated powers, including their belief that the harm to existing heritage assets had not been overcome by the public benefits and issues relating to highway safety and flood risk.
The report by the council’s planning officers highlighted the list of objections by people against the proposal such as ‘overdevelopment of the site’, ‘out of character with the surrounding area’, ‘potential flooding impacts’, ‘highway safety concerns’, ‘amenity impacts upon nearby properties’ and ‘insufficient car parking provision for a development of this scale’.
Providing ‘much-needed development for the area’, ‘enhancement to the reputation of Morpeth’, ‘visual improvements to the area’ and ‘appropriate use for the site and size of development for this area of Morpeth’ were among the claimed benefits of the scheme raised by the people who wrote in support.