Fed-up residents say little bar has become a big noise in their Preston neighbourhood

Owners of the Tulketh Tap Room, which opened in 2020, will be called before the city's licensing sub-committee next month to answer allegations that it has been repeatedly disturbing neighbours with loud music and even louder customers.

The council imposed strict conditions on noise when it granted planning permission for the bar in Tulketh Brow, Ashton two-and-a-half years ago. It ordered that only background music could be played inside. But council environmental health chiefs say they have had to deal with a constant string of complaints from residents about a big din coming from the little bar.

Now the venue, which was originally designed "to draw a more mature crowd," is facing a Town Hall hearing in four weeks time to answer calls from both the council and the police for a complete ban on music, the employment of door staff to control customers both inside and outside the premises and a cut in the bar's opening times – it currently serves alcohol between 10am and 11:30pm on Monday to Friday and 11am to 11pm on a Sunday.

The hearing should have been held in September, but it has now dragged on until December 12 because of what a council spokesperson said were "administrative issues." The call for a review has come from environmental health bosses who claim they have been dealing with a catalogue of noise complaints since the bar opened. Experts have visited residents and taken sound measurements to back up claims about the sound level being endured by locals.

Issues raised include live music, singing, shouting and arguing. Residents have also reported customers urinating in public places, car doors slamming, cars being parked for days and glasses, litter and drug paraphernalia all being left in the area.

In a report to the licensing sub-committee environmental health officers say they have regularly warned the bar about noise, but complaints were still coming in by July this year so they finally served the owners with a statutory noise abatement notice. But within two weeks of the notice being issued they were called up again to witness loud music.

The inspector found the music was so loud it drowned out the radio inside the Spar shop next door. Customers sitting outside were having to shout to each other to be heard above the music. Some were shouting at car drivers waiting at traffic lights nearby. Days later environmental health officers and police visited the premises to tell the owners a licence review would be applied for.

Yet even after that householders lodged more complaints about loud music, patrons shouting "and a multitude of anti-social behaviour and crime and disorder."

The report adds: "In the light of (this) environmental health request that the committee consider a condition that no entertainment involving music, DJs etc is provided at the Tulketh Tap Room. Furthermore door staff should be employed to enable greater control of patrons on the premises and in the immediate vicinity."