Controversial Colchester 'pop-up Irish pub' branded a 'disaster waiting to happen'

Controversial plans for a pop-up Irish pub event in an Essex city have been thrown out by the council due to concerns about the impact on the community and worries about "a disaster waiting to happen”. Colchester City Council has refused plans for the Molly O’Reillys event at the all-weather football pitch off Cowdray Avenue, Colchester. Live Tour Promotions Limited was proposing to hold the event and had applied for a licence for the event, which was thrown out at a meeting of the council’s licensing sub-committee on November 25.

The event was due to see the sale of alcohol, live music indoors, recorded music indoors, the performance of dance indoors for 1,000 people from December 6 to New Year's Eve, Tuesday, December 31. Ahead of the council meeting, documents showed there were 69 objections submitted in writing against the plans as well as a petition signed with 48 signatures against the plans and there are also written objections from ward councillors.

During the meeting, Martin Goss, Lib Dem councillor for Castle, and councillor for waste, neighbourhoods and leisure said: “I’ve got no problem with the event I think it sounds an event many people would want to attend but going back to what councillor Buston said I think it's the location that's the biggest concern. I think with prevention of crime or disorder, there could be a potential increase, and yes, there will be professional door staff, but there's only so far they are allowed to professionally go. They are not the police. We have to make sure we minimise impact on local residents in the immediate vicinity and the wider area. On balance I don't believe this event is in the best location and in fact somewhere like the new Colchester sports park would have been perfect.”

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One emotional resident broke down into tears while explaining to the committee she cares for her husband with dementia and how distressing loud noise is for him. She told the meeting: “There is nothing I would like more than a proper big Irish party with Irish singing and Guinness, my second favourite drink, however, it's right on my front doorstep, a great idea, really wrong location. With the best will in the world, if you want an Irish party, you're going to want to have a little bit of noise, you're going to want to sing, you're going to want to have the crack, I think your aims are incompatible with the residential area, if you want a good party and if you also want the residents to be looked after. It can get very cold, dark and if you’ve had a drink, I can just see a disaster waiting to happen.”

Andy Grimsey, solicitor for the applicant, told the hearing: “There are two Thursdays in the plans which have not been as popular as other days, we are always aware of our neighbours' concerns and we don't want to add fuel to the fire so we are going to remove those Thursdays. Karaoke doesn't need specific permission, but it's included in the license again, we are aware of concerns about what they consider to be uncontrolled singing, so again, we are going to withdraw any application for karaoke across all the nights.

"We are people people, my clients run events all over the world and we like to keep people happy, they don't like to make people annoyed or angry, and they certainly don't want to misunderstand what the event is about. What it is not is a nightclub. It doesn't have nightclub hours, it doesn't have a dancefloor, the idea is not to encourage virtual drinking, the idea is people sit at their tables and get up for drinks. The organisers are not shady individuals they are people with enormous experience running very large and successful events.”

Councillor Dave Harris, chairman of the meeting, said: “The sub-committee additionally gave careful consideration to the significant number of concerns which had been raised by local residents. The sub-committee was impressed by the extension conditions which had been offered by the applicant. However, it did not consider that these conditions would be sufficient to ensure that the licensing objectives would be upheld given the specific location of the proposed premises and its proximity to a significant number of local residents, a family-orientated leisure park and a skate park.

"The sub-committee considered the negative impact of the proposed premises in this specific location with the proposed number of attendees was not something which would be possible to mitigate through the proposed conditions of any further modification of the application, so therefore, the only avenue open was therefore to refuse the application.”