A PROBLEM pub will be allowed to open again – but with a raft of restrictions in place after neighbours raised objections.

An application to bring back The Albion in Waterloo Road, which closed in April last year, was granted permission by a licensing sub-committee at Rushmoor Borough Council, but with heavy restrictions.

A dozen objections were submitted to the council after the planning application was put in by Kishor Gurung, a former Gurkha soldier, resulting in a licensing hearing on Tuesday, January 22.

Father-of-two Chris Davis lives opposite the pub, and told the meeting that since The Albion closed last year, residents in the road had enjoyed an improved quality of life which they did not want to end.

“It’s been a much more pleasant place to live in,” he said.

“We no longer have to suffer rowdy behaviour, and antisocial behaviour is more or less zero.

“We no longer need to walk around the vomit or clean it up from outside our houses.”

Paratrooper Scott Mead lives next door to Mr Davis and said it was hard to instil discipline in his two children who were forced to watch pub customers fighting and urinating in the street.

“The Albion had become a place where it was known that people could get in there,” he said. “It’s a major concern that we have got.

“It’s predominantly a Nepalese pub which is fine, but why don’t they have it in a place which has got a bit more security?”

Speaking outside the meeting, he said he was worried that a high proportion of Nepalese customers would attract ‘troublemakers’ looking to pick a fight.

He referred to one incident during the pub’s troubled past where a man was left ‘with half an ear’ during a brawl which spilled out into the street because the landlord at the time did not want it inside the pub.

“How are you going to control your customers after they leave the pub?” he asked Mr Gurung during the hearing at the council offices in Farnborough.

Mr Gurung said: “The antisocial behaviour could happen anywhere, anytime.

“Obviously everything happened in the past so let’s see what happens once the licence is granted for me.”

Chair of the committee, Councillor Martin Tennant, asked the group of residents at the meeting to tell him what restrictions they would like to see imposed on the pub’s licence, but they all agreed that there were none that would make living with the pub any easier.

“This is not a personal attack on Mr Gurung,” said Mr Mead. “There are lots of different people living on this road and we all get on.

“This is just a selfish thing from residents who don’t want to go back to how it was before.”

The application was granted with a number of conditions. No one will be permitted to enter the pub after 10pm, and no glasses or bottles can be taken outside.

The smoking area will be kept at the back of the pub’s outdoor area and as far away from neighbouring homes as possible. No restrictions will be placed on the times when children can be in the pub in order to encourage a family atmosphere.

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