Hotel refused permission for outdoor events after noise complaints

The Churston Manor Hotel's licence was reviewed in October following problems last summer

A village hotel has been refused permission to stage outdoor music and films after noise complaints from neighbours.

Churston Manor Hotel at Churston Ferrers, between Paignton and Brixham, was back before councillors after its licence was reviewed in October following problems last summer.

Torbay Council’s licensing sub-committee considered an application on Thursday to vary the hotel’s premises licence.

After a hearing lasting seven hours, councillors decided to refuse permission for outdoor live or recorded music and film shows between 10am and 11pm.

The committee did allow a request for the hotel to open and sell alcohol two hours earlier at 10am on on Sundays.

Councillors were told there were 40 objections to the application and 10 comments in support.

The committee heard from villagers who opposed to the request to hold outdoor events because of problems reported last year.

They told of the noise and disturbance caused by events including outdoor film shows and the free Strawberry Fayre Music and Beer Festival held over a weekend in August.

The festival is being advertised again in August this year with more than 700 people saying on Facebook they are interested in going, councillors were told.

The committee heard from Jonathan Smith, a director of Gooseberry Inns (2016) Ltd  which runs the hotel, who said they had opened up a new line of communication with villagers and recently held a meeting with local representatives.

Mr Smith said the application included a detailed set of restrictions and conditions about how events would be managed to reassure residents, and a noise impact assessment showed there was unlikely to be a problem for neighbours.

The council’s public protection officer Karl Martin said he could not support the application because of the risk of noise nuisance for the village.

He challenged the noise report because the background level monitoring included the weekend of Storm Freya which would have affected results.

He also questioned the sound level near the stage used in the tests which he said was not high enough to give a good live music experience.

After the decision, Philip Gerrish, who lives 150m from the hotel, said: “The licensing committee have made a decision that aims to continue to protect the residents from unwanted noise nuisance.”

The 16th Century grade-two listed building in Church Road, formerly known as Churston Court Hotel, has 18 rooms, a restaurant and bar.

Village residents living up to 200m away said last summer they could hear music and noise from the crowd in their homes with the windows shut,  and constant bass thudding.

They said they had lost trust in the hotel management and had not seen any assurance that the problems of last year would not be repeated.

Carol Mellor, who lives 120m away, said the experience had affected her health and that of others in the village.

She described the noise intrusion from the festival last year as “intolerable and just plain wrong.”

Villagers said they supported the hotel and wanted it to be successful, but objected to the noise and disturbance from events.