A cricket club will be allowed to sell alcohol and play live music despite its manager admitting an event last year had been too loud.
Wallasey Cricket Club, on Rosclare Drive in the Wirral town, holds a small number of outdoor events each year. Its general manager, Mike Ellis, said the volume was “a bit higher than perhaps it should have been” at an event last August which saw four bands play. He said this noise issue would not happen again.
The club already has a premises certificate which allows it to sell alcohol between 11am and 11pm from Monday to Thursday and 11am until midnight on Fridays and Saturdays, with midday until 11pm the hours permitted on Sundays. But this licence only allows alcohol to be sold to club members and guests.
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It also has a licence to play recorded music between 7.30pm and 11.30pm on Fridays and Saturdays and had to apply for temporary event notices for other events, some of which involved live music.
Today’s meeting of Wirral Council’s Licensing Panel granted the club a premises licence which allows it to sell alcohol to ordinary members of the public. The hours granted are similar to those it already has, although the club was granted the later licence on Thursdays, as well as Fridays and Saturdays, with the facility remaining open for 30 minutes after the sale of alcohol ends.
The licence also allows the club to play recorded and live music between midday and 11pm from Sunday to Thursday and until 11.30pm on Fridays and Saturdays. One representation from a local resident was made, relating to noise nuisance they claim is caused to local residents when outdoor music is played during events at the cricket club. They believe this is a worry for many residents and that it is necessary to control it through strong conditions, although the resident did not attend today’s meeting.
Mr Elliot said the club wanted to be a good neighbour and that out of 63 dwellings around the ground, only two residents regularly complained. Conservative councillor David Burgess-Joyce, one member of the three-councillor panel, asked what would be done to make sure people would be happy to live near the club.
Mr Elliot said the club does try to be responsible and is strict in ensuring times are adhered to. He said he can’t guarantee there will be no noise that can be heard from the home of the resident who made the representation to the council.
But the general manager said what was being discussed was two bank holiday weekends where bands would be playing between 8pm and 10pm and there was not much more they could do apart from not having music to reduce the noise. He said music was something people came to see at the previously mentioned events at the club.
Despite there being some events at Wallasey Cricket Club, Mr Ellis said it will remain a members club and added he was not proposing a public house or Glastonbury, although he said there may be one or two other events with music such as a band playing earlier in the evening on bonfire night.
Mr Eliis said the pandemic had been a hard time for the club and stressed the importance of the income from events in putting the club in the situation it is in now.
