Corby pub's licence under review after residents compile dossier about rowdy customers

Drug taking, fighting, urinating, vomiting and public sex have all been captured on camera by residents living close to the venue in Corby Old Village, which can open until 4am seven nights a week.

Last August Corby Council’s licensing committee granted permission for the venue, which is run by Simon Green, to open its doors until 4am and play music until 3.30am.

But now the Corby Old Village Neighbourhood Association has put in a request for the same panel to look again at the application after a series of anti-social incidents at the weekends. The Old Village is a conservation area and has 659 homes and until recently seven licensed venues.

In the review request the association catalogued 46 incidents between August and March.

It has submitted photographic evidence of a number of incidents.

Alleged incidents logged include crowds of young people fighting in the street in the early hours of Christmas morning, a man smashing the landlord’s windscreen by jumping on the bonnet, gangs gathering outside homes and snorting drugs off walls and couples having public sex.

Police have been called to the area on a number of occasions.

The application to the council says: “Residential properties are within 10-50 yards of the pub and pub customers use the side of their homes for urinating, having sex and using front walls for their drug sniffing.

Customers have come out of the pubs and been seen to re-enter after partaking in offensive activities.”

A supporting letter by the association says the weekend activity is turning the area into a warzone.

It says: “It is a beautiful place to live and deserves its conservation status during the week, but unfortunately the weekend are deplorable and more like Beirut due to the night-time economy issues from the late night venues. The area has a confused identity and the council are responsible for this image.

“The association does not want to be party poopers but residents would like to be able to sleep at weekends after 1.30am.”

The association, which re-formed in September last year in response to the activities of the Lloyds Road pub’s customers, says the town’s youth descend on the area at the weekends after drinking elsewhere. It has held public meetings with the area’s councillors and has made Corby MP Tom Pursglove aware of situation. Forty-one residents have signed the application of the licence review.

The neighbourhood association says it does not have strong objections to other venues in the area. Residents had made their concerns known about the anti-social problems before the council granted the new increased licensing hours last August.

The police have not made a representation to the panel as yet.

Under the Licensing Act 2003 the councillors on the liquor licensing panel which meets on May 10, will have a number of options including doing nothing, changing the conditions of the premises licence and suspending or revoking the alcohol licence.

The licence holder can appeal to the magistrates court against the panel’s decision within 21 days.