Paintball venue targets licence to keep outdoor pub
BUT BOSSES FACE BATTLE WITH UNHAPPY NEIGHBOURS
A FAMILY-RUN paintballing and quad-biking centre wants to make its former ammo shed, converted into a pub, a permanent feature.
Wild Park Derbyshire, just outside Brailsford, set up a pub in its former paintballing ammo shed during lockdown, dubbing it the Pub in the Woods.
It has hosted more than a dozen events through temporary permissions from Derbyshire Dales District Council.
The site has now applied for a full premises licence, meaning the venue would be used on a consistent and regular basis, which also allows more conditions to be attached for its safe use.
A licensing hearing will decide the venue’s future today hosted online via the district council’s Youtube channel.
The hearing has been triggered after objection letters were submitted by four households, who are concerned about the noise of the venue.
An application for the premises licence details that the venue would be open from 7.30am until 11.30pm Sunday through Wednesday and 7.30am until 12.30am on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays.
Alcohol would be on sale from noon each day and until 11pm Sunday through Wednesday and until midnight Thursday to Saturday.
Music would be permitted indoors and outdoors until midnight from Thursday to Saturday and films would be allowed to be shown from 9am until midnight on the Sundays before bank holidays and on Halloween (October 31), and until 1am on New Year’s Eve.
application details that the venue is a large log cabin with a tin roof, measuring 25 metres by 15 metres, along with a smaller log cabin measuring five metres by 10 metres.
It says the large cabin is usually used as a “safe area” between paintballing battles, where customers can restock on ammo and get drinks and snacks. It is also used for corporate team building and sometimes school fundraising events.
The venue also has an outdoor seating area with picnic tables and log stumps, along with an open sided tipi and open-sided wooden huts.
It says it would like permission for regular live music sessions as the business expands following the pandemic, saying “we would rather ensure we have covered all possibilities and have the flexibility to cater for events in the future”.
The application also says: “We may wish to have ‘ladies’ or ‘gentleman’s’ evenings with Butlers in the Buff etc. These nights would take place no more than once a month and will be adult-only.”
It says: “We have a close working relationship with the local police force as a result of our existing business activities and will continue to do so, taking advice and guidance where necessary.
“We will not serve alcohol to anyone participating in any of our outdoor activities until they have finished their activity - the two businesses are totally separate.”
A couple, writing in an objection letter opposing the pub, detail that they live less than 500 metres from the venue and say they can hear the music from the site when they are outside - depending on wind.
They write: “We are not against our neighbours working hard running this new business venture and wish them luck with it. However we would like to express our reservations about the effect this premise license will have allowing frequent loud music and film soundtracks, until 12am three nights a week and 11pm the remaining nights of the week.”
They suggest the music from the venue, if allowed consistently, would disturb their sleep and enjoyment of their property. One woman, who also lives nearby, writes that she is concerned about the increase in traffic, preferring the venue to run for two or three nights a week, not every day.
One couple who live at Mercaston Hall, to the north of the site, wrote: “We don’t want to be killjoys but we have already put up with the noise of quad bikes for many years as an outdoor leisure pursuit. The outdoor pub was innovative in these Covid times but do they need such extended times, start and finish? Night clubs surely belong to city centre venues.”
A man, who lives on a neighbouring farm, is opposing on the grounds of noise pollution and the issues presented by would-be attendees.
He wrote: “They have been operating the Pub in the Woods for a few months now and despite the wording that ‘there will be some incidental music’ on a number of nights this can be clearly heard from our house at Top Wild Park Farm preventing us from settling down until after 11pm.
“With more people and the live or recorded music will inevitably be louder and they are applying for it to go on for longer.
“The idea of stag and hen party events with the obvious noise and behavioural issues are not really the right thing for an area that is very peaceful and quiet after working hours. This is a very peaceful and quiet part of the Derbyshire countryside and would be nice to keep it this way.”
The outdoor pub was innovative in these Covid times but do they need such extended times, start and finish?
Resident