A countryside party venue in Gedling has been granted permission to hold outdoor events until 2am – but the number of events allowed has been reduced.
Goosedale Events Ltd, which hosts weddings, private parties, conferences and business events on its 100-acre site applied for a new licence for an outdoors events space.
The company uses its converted 17th-century farm in Goosedale Lane, between Bestwood Village and Papplewick, for the events. Multiple licensed bars and banqueting suites already exist on site, and they can accommodate up to 550 people.
The decision was made in Gedling Borough Council’s licensing panel on Thursday (October 2).
The new licence applied for saw the business wanting to run 21 events each year in the outdoor space, with licensable activities from 9am until 2am every day.
But Gedling Borough Council’s licensing panel decided on Thursday (October 2) to allow the space to operate 12 events each year and permission was granted subject to conditions with Nottinghamshire Police and the environmental health officer (EHO).
The number of events being reduced from 21 to 12 was a recent amendment the company made to the EHO, and will mean 12 one-day events can run each year in the outdoor space and can run until 2am on the nights they take place.
The granted permission also means that while the sale of alcohol is granted until 2am, live entertainment will be capped at 11:30pm from Sunday to Wednesday, midnight on Thursdays and Fridays, and until 12:30am on Saturdays and until 12:30am on Sundays that directly precede a bank holiday Monday.
Some nearby residents living in the countryside surrounding the venue objected to the application for the new licence and dozens of residents from the nearby Sandy Oaks Village retirement park signed a petition against the plans.
Mr Robert Morton, resident of the retirement park and representative for its residents, said during Thursday’s meeting: “We get the bulk of the noise from your events… every event you do, the noise carries to our park which is basically a horse shoe, acts like an amphitheatre.
“Come 10 o’clock at night, you can hear a pin drop. The time you’re talking about, drinking, socialising, getting off the premises, you’re talking a minimum of three o’clock… I didn’t come here to listen to music until three.”
Resident Robert Glynn asked: “This is probably going to increase the traffic coming down [Goosedale Lane], so what are the plans you have got to upgrade or help with that public footpath?”
Mr Walaiti Rathore, from the Licensing Law Consultancy, responded: “There’s going to be better management moving forward as we propose in the conditions.”
During the meeting, Councillor Martin Smith (Con) asked: “Potentially, you could take over your existing car parking if this application was successful, so where will those cars be displaced to?”
Dominic Hayer, director of the company, replied: “We have an overflow car park, we also have overflow fields that we’ve been using for 20 years. The only issue is, if we had a circumstance we didn’t expect which is natural, sometimes we then have to adjust to that.”
Nottinghamshire Police originally said the information given with the plans was “not sufficient enough to promote or uphold the licensing objectives”.
The force suggested the installation of CCTV, the training of all staff members in the retail sale of alcohol and that an incident log book be held to note any problems and to keep record – these conditions have been agreed and imposed as part of the granted permission.
Another condition imposed on the granting of the licence is that car park marshals will be deployed to manage vehicles at the venue for the entire duration of an event – not just during peak times.
