Planners have given the go ahead for investment at a Blackpool working men’s club despite objectors claiming they are subject to noise from “awful karaoke”.
The scheme will see a new entrance with a glazed canopy built at the Stanley Road Working Men’s Club on Stanley Road and also includes a small outdoor seating area. Town hall planners approved the application using their delegated powers saying it “would support and enhance the social club as an existing community facility.”
A report setting out the decision adds: “Such facilities have an important role in developing and maintaining community inclusion and cohesion and help to create and maintain sustainable neighbourhoods, which the scheme will facilitate.”
But two objectors living on nearby Livingston Road said they feared the investment would result in more noise nuisance because it would attract more customers to the club.
An objection lodged with the council says in the past doors have been opened during warm weather with residents “then subjected to club acts singing and loud music or worse still awful karaoke, drowning out our peace when wishing to use the gardens, or on warm summer nights, disturbing sleep”.
Residents also raised objections about noise from glass being emptied into bins at unsociable hours. However the council said such concerns could only be dealt with by adding conditions to the club’s licence and were not a planning matter, and could only be dealt with by licensing or environmental protection teams.
The planning report added: “However as the social club is a long-standing lawful use and this application does not propose an extension/intensification of the use (other than the small outside seating area) it is not something that could be controlled through planning.”
Approval was granted for the creation of a new front entrance in the centre of the building with a glazed canopy and a new glazed balustrade to either side to create an outside seating area.
Also approved are three louvred doors as part of a new internal bin store at the back of the building, new doors to the current main entrance and a new pedestrian door at the side.
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