The ‘noisy neighbour’ that can now serve booze with breakfast

A bar in Stalybridge town centre can now serve boozy breakfast and brunches despite noise complaints from upstairs neighbours.

SK15 Bar & Bistro has been granted permission to sell alcohol from 9.30am and until 2am on special occasions such as New Year’s Eve. They submitted the application to the council primarily so they can serve champagne and mimosas to customers during the morning.

Previously the Market Street venue could only serve alcohol from 11.30am.

Due to repeated noise complaints from objecting neighbours, which included Philp and Sandra Brook, a licensing meeting was called to resolve the matter.

The couple only moved into their flat above the bar last year, but said the first night in their new home ‘the noise was horrendous’, the licensing panel in the Tameside One council building was told.

After complaining to the manager Stephen Bower, both parties agreed a maximum sound level for the speakers that would not disturb them.

However, the pair reported the noise going beyond the agreed point once again last month, which led to their objections to the latest variation to the bar’s licence.

“What we are getting here is a complete lack of respect from the manager,” Mr Brook told the panel. “That premises below is beneath over 30 flats, it’s not built for a bar or nightclub.

“As far as I am concerned you can have the booze from 9.30am but what we can’t have is unacceptable noise. Families and children are being affected and it is just not right.”

Philip added: “So it’s the residents that have to suffer so you can have a successful business?”

Stephen Bower, speaking at the hearing on March 10, explained that he has worked with complaining residents to reduce noise levels, which he was told have come down from ‘horrendous, horrendous, horrendous’, to just ‘horrendous’. Mr Bower said he would consider looking into a noise limiter to come to a middle ground with disgruntled neighbours.

He made the point that living in the town centre and above a bar, there was going to noise – not just from his bar but from the surrounding nightlife in the town. 

Mr Bower said: “The night time trade helps the restaurant. With VAT and wages increasing, there isn’t that much else left after that.

“If we can’t operate as a night time venue on a Saturday we may have to close. We have had no complaints from residents above us (since opening in 2023), it has only been in the last few months.

“I wouldn’t live in a town centre because of the noise and I wouldn’t live next to a pig farm because I don’t want the smell of pigs.”

The objecting couple in the room, who used to run pubs in the Stalybridge area, responded by saying that they moved in under the assumption that the noise levels wouldn’t be as bad as they are. They say it has really impacted their lives as well as the other complaining residnets who couldn’t attend the meeting.

Mrs Brooks added that she had to take her grandson back to Droylsden at 12.30am because he, a young baby, couldn’t sleep due to the noise levels. 

The panel, chaired by Coun Helen Bowden, granted the changes to the licence. They decided against imposing a noise limiter as a condition following reassurance the bar would bring down the noise levels as promised.