An award-winning Newcastle micropub is bidding to open a sister venue in Heaton.
The Town Mouse Ale House, which has been a big hit with beer fans since opening in the city centre in 2017, wants to expand its operation to a new site on Heaton Road. City councillors were told at a hearing on Tuesday that the venture would add to the “vibrancy and quality” of establishments opening up around Heaton.
The plan has reignited concerns from one objector that an influx of bars risks creating a new “drinking strip” likened to Jesmond’s Osborne Road. However, a local councillor has hit back at those claims and branded them “rather silly hyperbole”.
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Solicitor Sarah Smith, representing the Town Mouse as it sought to secure a licence from Newcastle City Council’s licensing sub-committee on Tuesday, said that the ale house had been a “huge success story” and had repeatedly been named as Newcastle CAMRA’s pub of the year. She added that the 60-capacity new site on Heaton Road would offer a “community environment” and would replicate the style of the original St Mary’s Place micropub, but would also be able to host small functions and events such as beer tastings.
But the project has been opposed by Hamish Moore, who also appeared before councillors recently to speak out against the nearby Flight Bar and warned that Heaton could become “another Osborne Road”. Mr Moore, who clarified on Tuesday that he does not live in Heaton but has run a business there since 1988, repeated his concerns over a “drinking strip” being created in a residential area close to a school and churches.
He added: “Often in busy places where alcohol has been consumed, individuals conduct themselves in manners, which are likely to lead to issues such as urinating in a public place, singing and general unsavoury behaviours.” Mr Moore told the committee that NHS workers living above his offices had concerns about the Town Mouse opening and pointed to Northumbria Police statistic showing there were 24 crimes within 500 yards of the proposed premises in December, ten of which were of a violent and or sexual nature.
Ms Smith said that the objections were “unfounded and unsupported by evidence”, while several local residents who wrote in support of the new bar hailed it as “totally complementary to the street” and a “calm, comfortable and welcoming” pub. Heaton Labour councillor John-Paul Stephenson wrote to the committee to address the “dubious” claims against the Town Mouse and welcomed the plans as “another step in the area’s vibrancy and sophisticated offer”.
Coun Stephenson said: “We went through the same cycle with Flight Bar’s application, with rather silly hyperbole about turning the road into Osborne Road. | have subsequently visited as a customer, on a Sunday evening (without disclosing to them that | was a ward councillor). The atmosphere was the epitome of civilization — absolutely zero disruption to anyone outside.”
He added: “We are not talking about louts getting rat***** on cheap cider, nor is it the environment which will attract ‘lads, lads, lads’.”
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