A RESTAURANT and bar with its own delicatessen in an upmarket town will be allowed to stay open until gone 1am at weekends.

Number 57 Bridge Street, Usk will be allowed to serve alcohol from 10am until 11.30pm on Sundays and Mondays, when it can open until midnight, and until 12.45am Thursday through to Saturday when it can stay open until 1.15am.

However a condition will mean no alcohol can be consumed in the outside area, including that covered by the footprint of its existing marquee, after midnight.

The condition was suggested by solicitor Matthew Phipps who represented applicant, local businessman Clive Jones, after Nigel Webb, whose garden is next to the restaurant’s outside area, maintained his objections at Monmouthshire County Council’s licensing hearing.

Mr Webb, who has lived in his home on New Market Street for 30 years, with his family including his mother-in-law and a one-year-old grandson who regularly sleeps over, said when they’d moved in 57 Bridge Street was the Nat West Bank, and they weren’t opposed to change, but its current licence is to 10pm.

“I’m not against 57 as a business, I use it regularly and so do my family,” Mr Webb told the hearing: “My concerns relate specifically to the car park area and the marquee.”

He said he feared later opening would lead to increased noise and played a recording from his phone, which he said was made on December 29, though council licensing officer Samantha Winn said its environmental health department hadn’t made any objections as a result.

Mr Webb told the committee: “Our property is 600-years-old and grade II-listed and less insulated than a modern building and doesn’t have double glazing and we are not able to make alterations. It is less than 10 metres from the marquee.”

Mr Phipps said the original application had been amended to meet concerns raised by the police and council but Mr Webb and two other neighbours had maintained their objections.

He said Mr Jones had also dropped his request to sell alcohol in the marque and use it for live and recorded music past 11pm but said though alcohol would only be sold within the building guests would still be able to take their drinks to outside areas including the marquee.

The solicitor said: “This is not a pub and is not being converted into a pub.”

The meeting was also told Monmouthshire County Council’s planning department has confirmed an application for listed building consent for the existing marquee is required. Usk restaurant