Fears chicken shop plans could become 'another noisy night time venue'
Residents fear if a proposed new chicken restaurant wins the right to stay open after midnight it will be yet another "noisy night time venue."
Piri Fino is seeking to open its 10th restaurant in the UK with a site on Seel Street. Having opened its first branch in Birmingham in 2010, the brand is continuing its expansion into the north west and has launched a bid to secure a premises licence from Liverpool Council.
However this has set some fears running among people who would live near the proposed site in the city centre, with representations being made to the city council about “another noisy night time venue.”
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According to documents made available by the city council’s licensing and gambling sub-committee, the premises is proposed to be a Piri-Piri chicken restaurant located on the ground floor of a newly built building in a mixed-use area of the city. The premises includes seating areas for approximately 65 internally and 60 in an outdoor seating area at the rear of the premises with additional capacity for those waiting for their table.
It is proposing to open from 11am daily with a terminal hour of 1am on Friday and Saturday. This would also include the playing of music until closing time, which has caused consternation from those living nearby.
One objector made this clear in a written representation to the committee. They wrote: “The area we live in already hosts numerous restaurants, bars, night clubs and other venues providing late night music and the cumulative impact of these is considerable.
We have to use noise cancelling ear plugs and / or play white noise to seek to cancel out the highly intrusive cacophony. Neither of these methods completely eliminate the problem, rather than merely mask the situation and, in themselves are, highly intrusive in our lives.
“A quiet night in with no sound intrusion is impossible. Consequently our stress levels on most evenings are high due to intrusive noise utterly beyond our control.”
The objector said they recognised how the evening economy was important to the city but felt the balance had “swung too far in the direction of businesses providing overly loud music often competing with venues immediately next door.” The representative added: “This results in a dreadful cacophony of sound with no inherent merit beyond the desire to be the loudest and brashest.”
As a result, this meant they called for the late night provision to be rejected. The letter said: “We would not object if the application is amended such that a restaurant operating more standard business hours for such an enterprise (e.g. closing at 23.00) with ambient music provided solely for its patrons to enjoy (i.e. not booming into the night air).
"Such an enterprise would be welcome to help diversify the area so that there is a better balance between venues whose business model is providing loud music to its patrons and anyone else within a 300-400 metre radius.”
The plans will be considered by Liverpool Council on November 6.