An East London hotel that wanted to serve alcohol to guests until midnight on Fridays and Saturdays has been given the green light despite concerns from residents that they would be kept up at night and would have trouble sleeping. Point A Hotel which is located close to Liverpool Street and is in the London borough of Tower Hamlets, had applied for a new premises licence with the council so it could serve booze from its hotel bar from 11am until 11pm from Monday to Thursday, until 12am on Fridays and Saturdays and until 10.30pm on Sundays.
During a meeting with Tower Hamlets Council’s licensing sub-committee last week (September 12), Matthew Butt KC who was speaking on behalf of the hotel, said the bar would be strictly for hotel guests. Mr Butt told the council chamber: “Unless you have booked and paid for a room at the hotel, you cannot have a drink in the bar, so it is hard to see how this could be more of a restrictive application for a hotel bar.”
He went on to say: “The only people who could drink in the bar are hotel residents, nobody would ever come to these premises just to go to the bar, so [if the licence is granted], it will be confined to those who have already booked and paid for a room in the hotel.” However the plans had been met with 22 objections from local residents, Environmental Health, the licensing authority and two residents’ associations, who were concerned about the possibility of guests being too loud and upsetting local residents.
READ MORE: Outrage as East London pensioners slapped with £150 fines for feeding birds in park
Environmental health officer, Nicola Cadzow said in council documents that the hotel falls in the Brick Lane Cumulative Impact Zone (CIZ) and granting the licence could create more problems for the area regarding public nuisance or crime and disorder. Christopher Lloyd of the residents’ association group, SPIRE and was speaking in objection of the plans, claimed the hotel had seen problems with anti-social behaviour (ASB) and noise in the past.
He said: “Post Covid it wasn’t unusual for police to attend to deal with these issues that have either spilled out onto the street or staff have been unable to deal with it at the premises. There was such serious issues [during] this time, extra security was set up by the hotel but it’s longer in place unfortunately.”
Mr Lloyd said a number of social housing tenants live opposite the hotel which is on Folgate Street and feel “very strongly and have lived in that area over many years and have ongoing noise and ASB issues specifically with the hotel.” He argued the hotel should have a temporary licence lasting one year “to try and raise some trust” with residents and the local community however he went on to say that this suggestion had been rejected by the hotel.
Mr Lloyd added: “Many residents who live in those social housing include NHS workers, teachers and also families that really do value their quiet evening time and uninterrupted sleep. We have no doubt that adding an alcohol licence… will no doubt make matters worse.”
In response to these concerns, Mr Butt said: “We accept there was a period when the Covid lockdown restrictions were in place when the hotel like many other premises had difficulty trading and the result of that was a reduction in the room rates and it frankly resulted in a clientèle we would not have wanted to attract and that did cause problems.
“There has however been no reported problems at the premises for over a year. There has only been one occasion in which there has been a complaint to environmental health, which wasn’t relayed to the hotel.”
Local resident, Martin Hughes who has lived in the area for 29 years then spoke out against the plans, and said: “My neighbours and I regularly complain about late night noise with guests standing in the street, talking loudly, drinking… and smoking very often beneath the windows which is of course awful in the summer.”
The meeting then moved on to concluding remarks and a decision was published online a week later which said the sub-committee had chosen to grant the licence. Members of the sub-committee believed the hotel’s licensing application would have “no additional impact upon the CIZ” and approved the plans, subject to several conditions and amendments that were added to the application.
Want more from MyLondon? Sign up to our daily newsletters for all the latest and greatest from across London here.
