Weymouth Bay Haven says options are still available if council rejects license application
Dorset Council is considering a license application for a new £1M stage and bar
Haven is likely to achieve the licensing of a new £1million stage and bar at the Weymouth Bay holiday park if it chooses to – despite 160 local objections.
At a hearing into a new premises licence for an outdoor stage and bar a solicitor said the company could choose other legal means of licensing the proposed structures, if councillors rejected the application.
The Dorset Council licensing hearing was told on Tuesday that the company could have improved on consulting neighbours.
Only 15 were invited to a meeting about the plans for the stage and bar with solicitor Jonathan Smith agreeing that a better way might have been to talk to local councillors and to have also sent out invitations to a wider area: “But the question then becomes where do you stop?” he said.
The holiday park is asking for a licence which would give the ability to hold entertainment every day between 11am and 9pm; films on three days a week between 11am and 11pm and on and off sales of alcohol every day from a container bar between 11am and 11pm.
The conditions would apply from three weeks prior to Good Friday through to the end of October each year.
During the course of the day-long hearing Mr Smith said that the company was entitled to use other legal means to achieve what it wanted, although apologised afterwards, adding that what he said was not intended as a threat.
He said that if the alternative method was chosen, possibly using Temporary Event Notices or the Live Music conditions which already apply to the site, the company would still keep to the times originally asked for and would still use the noise limiting equipment.
Haven has promised to set the level of the device at 71decibels, lower than the maximum suggested by the acoustic modelling for the site.
Residents told the council panel that while parents on holiday might allow their children to be up to 11pm to watch a film, local children living alongside the site would still need to get a good night’s sleep and might have homework to do.
One said that while the music might be limited in volume levels how would it be possible to reduce the sound from 500 people or to stop them singing along if they choose to do so.
It was claimed that in Fisherbridge Road alone there were around two dozen children.
Mrs Miranda Robinson said she and her husband feared additional late night noise would disrupt bed-time for two refugee children they are caring for and said the site was already having an impact on parishioners at St Andrew’s church and local wildlife.
Resident Jane Young said the Haven site was surrounded by homes and believed her rights to a quiet and peaceful life under the Human Rights Act were being infringed by the proposals over eight months of the year.
She questioned how the additional sales of alcohol would fit in with the company’s ethos of family-friendly holidays.
“Why should local residents have their lives disrupted?” she said.
Ward councillor Louie O’Leary said that while the Weymouth Bay site had dealt with a number of problems over the last three years there had been occasional difficulties because of what he described as a lack of management consistency, including incidents which had breached voluntary agreements over noise.
Site manager Mr Doug Nye promised to take action over any complaints. He told the hearing that Haven would do all that it can to be a good neighbour including setting up a telephone line and a specific email for residents to use, although not all residents were happy with the idea, one describing it as “self-policing” which it was said seldom worked.
Said Mr Smith: “This is not Ibiza or Glastonbury which has been referred to in a couple of the representations. Any music which might have been heard in the past will now have to go through the noise limiter,” who said the levels would be set so that no home near the site would be disturbed.
He said there would be no sing-along music, no karaoke, no football matches broadcast and the music would be acoustic sets with no bands.
Dorset Police had raised no objection to the licence application and Dorset Council’s environmental health team had negotiated with Haven moving the proposed stage by 20 degrees so that the sound would be directed further away from the nearest homes.
A decision on the licence will be made in the coming days.
None of the proposed new structures at the site has planning consent with a decision awaited.
A planning application for the stage, container bar, jump tower, bike storage and mini aerial adventure can be seen on the Dorset Council website, reference 2022/01431, with a closing date for public comments on July 14th.