Neighbours of a golf club in a posh village say the upmarket on-site restaurant is now 'more like a nightclub'. Disgruntled locals aired their views as they objected to plans to allow a marquee next to the Lockside at Greenway Hall Golf Club in Stockton Brook to be used for more events.
They say disruption from the venue has become 'intolerable' with 'excessive noise', litter and 'pools of vomit' outside on some occasions. One woman even claimed she had suffered 'homophobic abuse' from visitors and had been kept awake on multiple nights.
As a result, they are fighting proposals to extend the existing licensing arrangements to include the space at the side of the clubhouse, where the marquee is based. Brett Barlow and his business partner Adam Gregory took over the tenancy of the North Staffordshire clubhouse in October last year and have refurbished the premises throughout, welcomed the first diners and drinkers to Lockside (in Bagnell) at the beginning of December, StokeonTrentLive reports.
The pair say the marquee will provide extra space to host low key events - such as funeral wakes, corporate and charity events, golf presentations and christenings. It will also be used as an overspill at times when the bar is busy.
They currently have permission for live and recorded music daily from 11am until 12.30am as well as serving alcohol daily from 9am until 12.30am. Due to licensing rules, if the application is approved it will mean amplified music can be played in the marquee between 9am and 11pm all year round with no unenforceable noise controls possible.
If the application is refused, they will still have the same permission - but only within the venue and from the outdoor spaces covered by the existing licence. The applicant has offered to only host live music under a temporary event licence, as a way of addressing neighbour’s concerns, but there would be no obligation for future managers of the venue to continue this arrangement if it changed hands.
Former Staffordshire Moorlands District Council leader Sybil Ralphs, who is a local resident in the area, said it was a 'very peaceful and pleasant place' to live but disruption from the venue had been getting worse.
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She said: “In the morning you’ll find puddles of vomit, that early morning joggers and people walking their dogs have to negotiate.
“The noise of the cars collecting people, the sounding of horns, the abuse shouted below bedrooms windows, the cans and bottles that are thrown into gardens. It’s just becoming intolerable.”
She said the marquee was little more than a tent, and described it as a ‘Heath Robinson’ construction. Neighbour Kate Rose said she’d suffered homophobic abuse after confronting rowdy people leaving the venue at around 1am.
She said: “I now feel unable to go out and challenge anybody, and I’m intimidated when I go out and walk my dog if there are groups of men - and sometimes women - walking past my property.
“I get woken up most weekends, and over the last two weeks I’ve been woken up on Monday, Tuesday and Friday night between the hours of half past ten and midnight. The level of clientele that are accessing Lockside, compared to when it was run as a golf course clubhouse, has gone down significantly.”
Wes Machin said his family hated returning home due to the issues. He said: “It’s unbearable. My family say they don’t want to come home at night, and I don’t want to come home from work. It’s changed my life and it’s changed the lives of my family. We want Lockside to succeed, but we don’t want it to succeed at the expense of our happiness.”
In a statement, the venue owners said: “Since the application was submitted we understand that concerns have been raised by local residents and the environmental health department about the noise issues.
“To this end we have met with the local residents environmental health on a number of occasions and have volunteered further conditions to be applied to the licence, including having no music at all in the marquee area (we wished to keep the ability to have a bar in this area), noise monitoring systems and offered that any celebrations, birthday parties and weddings planned for the marquee area would be covered by Temporary Event Notices.”
Brett told StokeonTrentLive: “What we wanted to do when we opened it was to open as a high end restaurant/bar, as it was previously, but take it to the next level. We’re local lads, I live less than a mile away, and it used to be our local.”
He said the extra space was needed to make a success of the venture. Staffordshire Moorlands District Council said it received six complaints about noise from the venue between March 18 and April 3, but noted some residents had held back their complaints in an attempt to address issues directly with the owners.
The council’s environmental health department stated in a report: “The granting of this premises licence will cause a public nuisance, compromise residential amenity for neighbours in the vicinity of the clubhouse and lead to further significant complaint to the district council. “Residents should be able to open their windows for ventilation and enjoy their gardens without unreasonable disturbance.”
A decision is expected to be announced within the next week.
