A Leeds pub has devised plans to extend its opening hours past midnight and to have loud speakers outside the venue. The Roundhay, which is between Roundhay Road and Ravenscar avenue has asked for permission to stay open until 1.30am on Friday and Saturday nights.
The pub will stay open until 12.30am for the rest of the week. The plan is to stay open an hour-and-a-half later than it currently does. The application submitted to Leeds City Council mean that last orders would be 30 minutes before the pub closes.
The pub, owned by brewing giants Greene King, has also asked for a number of conditions on its current licence to be removed, including one which prevents them from using loudspeakers outside. They want permission to play background music past 9pm and to allow children to stay beyond 10pm too.
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Comments on the application closed on November 8, so LeedsLive took a wander over to the area where the pub is located to ask residents what their thoughts are on the revised times. Some were happy, some not so much.
Julie Denise, 62, a retired vet nurse says the plans are 'silly' and will just increase anti-social behaviour. She said: "I don't like the idea at all, they are already open late enough and some of the older residents like me don't want to hear drunks on the street in the early hours of the morning.
"I don't have any control over the plans really, I could understand if it was in the city but it's meant to be quiet out here."
Jim and his partner who are locals to the Roundhay said the new licence would help the business. He said: "Pubs had a hard time during Covid, it'll create more business and I don't see how it will do any harm to be honest.
"It's not the pubs that cause the anti-social behaviour, its the fact people have nowhere to go afterwards like in town."
Richard Mowson, a resident nearby said: "This area is going to the dogs, I don't like the fact the pub exists anyway and I definitely don't want to see it open later, we need to be consulted, the residents have to have their say we are the ones who will deal with the issues in the long run.
Another resident, who wished to remain anonymous said: "Why would you want to have children in the pub that late? It's not safe and not right to have kids around booze."
Greene King addressed resident concerns, saying they want to upgrade the licence to allow them to show more of the upcoming World Cup matches. The company also said outside speakers are not a definite, should they are granted the licence by the council
In a statement, a spokesperson for The Roundhay said: "We are proud to show live sport in our pub and have applied for a more flexible licence to avoid scenarios where we have to close halfway through a late-night boxing match, or can only open halfway through an early-morning World Cup match.
“We would like to reassure our neighbours that it is not currently our intention to extend our opening hours on a daily basis, but it is simply to give us the flexibility to do so on special occasions. We also don’t currently have any plans to install outside speakers, but requested the current restriction be lifted so we had the option in the future to show a match outside if we were investing in our outside space.”
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