A pub customer who made noise objections against his village’s only inn is likely to be banned from using it again.
Zain Daniels told a Milton Keynes Council sub-committee that so much noise had been caused by the The White Hart, in Gun Lane, Sherington, during recent events that he was unable to sleep.
Mr Daniels appeared before the council’s Licensing Sub-Committee on Tuesday evening to outline his fears to the committee. He faced pub proprietor Keith Shepherd, and manager Giles Fern as he made his case. It was the first time that they realised one of their customers had objected.
Mr Daniels’ arguments were supported by council senior environmental health officer, Natasha Brown, who said she had “serious concerns that the event planned for June 8 will cause a public nuisance.”
The committee was told that a Motown charity event held on March 30, until midnight, and a 50th birthday party held in a marquee until 1am on May 11, had led to one complaint each.
The pub had applied to the council to be able to hold an 80th birthday party for 150 people and include a marquee, for “village stalwart” John Cook who has lived in the village for 47 years.
Proprietor Mr Shepherd said the pub had held 72 events since 1999 and all without complaints. “We need to have events because we’re not a thriving community. We also had a fire in 2017,” he said.
“Villagers will be devastated if we cannot go ahead with this event; they have already spent £4,000 on a marquee and people are coming from all over. He is a great stalwart to the village,” he said.
The committee was told by licensing officers that the last complaint against the pub was in 2014, and followed a large number of complaints to a noisy “beer and sausage festival” in 2013. But the pub made changes to the way it managed events, they said.
The committee decided to allow the temporary event to go ahead because of the small number of objections and the “openness of the applicant to monitor and work with the residents”.
They added a condition that the pub must use a council app to record the noise they make after 11pm.
After the meeting Mr Daniels said he liked the pub and hoped to be able to use it again. But he believed it was important to make a complaint because the pub had not been listening.
“I can hear it so loudly through sash windows that everything shakes and I cannot sleep,” he said. “There is a village WhatsApp group where everyone says about the noise but they did not want to complain because they don’t want the pub to close. I think it is important to stand up and be heard.
“I do not want the pub to close, personally I like them, but I just want them to turn the music down.”
Mr Daniels told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that he would like to be able to use the pub.
But when we spoke to Mr Shepherd and Mr Fern after the meeting, they were adamant that Mr Daniels would not be welcome in the premises.
