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| Ex-Tory spin doctor in battle
for a night’s sleep |
Former Express editor kept ‘noise
diary’ over beer garden
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Amanda Platell outside the Roebuck, and below her ‘noise
diary’
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FORMER Tory spin doctor Amanda Platell has hardly had a wink
of sleep this summer – and she blames her local pub.
She has secretly kept a ‘noise diary’ detailing complaints
about noise generated by staff and customers Roebuck pub in Pond
Street, two doors down from her Hampstead flat.
Ms Platell, a one-time editor of the Sunday Express, handed over
her diary of sleep deprivation to licensing chiefs on Tuesday as
worried residents successfully convinced councillors to stop the
pub opening late.
The Roebuck, which recently underwent a £1.25 million refurbishment
had wanted to extend its licence to a nightly 12.30am finish.
It was one of the first pubs in Hampstead to ask for extended hours
since the government scrapped fixed opening times.
But residents and several groups banded together to protest and
the application was spiked by the Town Hall’s licensing panel
on Tuesday night. Ms Platell said late night noise from the beer
garden stopped her from sleeping and made it impossible to concentrate
on work.
She also said that she felt intimidated by rowdy customers when
she arrived home late at night.
One diary entry said: “11.30pm: Woken to people loudly singing
Happy Birthday outside pub – singing so loud I was woken in
the back of the flat.”
Another note from a different night said: “5.05pm: Some kind
of party going on with singing and shouting – so noisy I couldn’t
work, had to shut window on a very hot night. Unbearable.”
Ms Platell, who worked as chief press strategist for ex-Conservative
leader William Hague, said screening sports events was a particular
problem.
She said: “I have seen fighting spill out onto the streets
on numerous occasions. The yob culture it encourages is frightening
to people, especially the elderly and children, not to say myself,
a woman often alone in the flat.”
Ms Platell sat in the back row of the jam-packed licensing hearing
on Tuesday night and listened as fellow residents made their objections.
Nicholas White, an investment banker and one of Ms Platell’s
neighbours, said his wife had tried to complain to the pub’s
managers but was simply offered a drink and nothing was done about
the noise.
The pub’s garden has a capacity of 60 and has recently installed
tents and heaters.
Managers said they would put signs up asking drinkers to leave quietly
– a suggestion met with hoots of derision from the Hampstead
residents observing the proceedings.
At one stage in the meeting, panel chairman Lib Dem Councillor Keith
Moffitt had to warn the public that he could shut them out of the
meeting if they made it too difficult to reach a decision in public.
Jackie McManus, area manager for brewery Mitchells and Butler, spoke
in favour of the pub, insisting that the refurbishment had driven
away trouble once associated with the pub.
She said: “We did change the business. It (Roebuck) was a sports-led
pub with predominately male customers.
“We had to take steps to move the pub in a different direction.”
Cllr Moffitt said: “On the weight of the evidence, I would
reject the application.”
Pub bosses were told they could only open for an hour longer on
a series of set days, including Valentines’ Night and Burns’
Night. |
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