Pub wins bid for late-night music and drinking

A SOMERSET church which was converted into a pub can now serve alcohol and play music later into the evening after a new licence was granted.

Stephen Elliott runs The Chapel on Graham Way in the heart of Cotford St Luke, near Taunton.

Mr Elliott applied to Somerset Council to amend his existing licence, allowing him to sell alcohol for consumption on the premises and to play live or recorded music later on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays.

The council’s licensing sub-committee west has signed off the changes.

The pub, which opened in 2008, can currently serve alcohol and play music until 11pm with extended opening hours on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. Under the new licence, the pub will be able to serve alcohol until midnight on Thursdays and Fridays and until 12.30am on Saturdays.

Ashleigh Cobden, who lives near the pub, lodged a formal objection to the extended licensing hours, arguing it would exacerbate problems in the village. She said: “Most Friday and Saturday nights, myself and my children are woken by drunk people coming out of the pub, shouting and kicking off outside of our house, and at times this has been quite frightening. This will not be appropriate for our village.”

Mr Elliott took over The Chapel with his wife in December 2022, the couple having lived and worked in the village for more than a decade previously.

He told the sub-committee: “We’re quite well-known within the village, and we took over the pub with a view that we wanted to bring it back to being a village pub as the hub of Cotford St Luke.”