Good news today. The Feathers Hotel has agreed to reduce its late opening hours by one hour. The owners, Crest Hotels, had applied to be open to walk in customers to serve alcohol until 1:00am on weekdays and 2:00am on Friday and Saturday (plus 30 minutes drinking up time). This is too late an hour – or early a morning – for our town centre. We have a lot of residential properties around the Feathers and we do not want this area to become a potential source of antisocial behaviour. The Feathers has now agreed to stop serving alcohol to walk in customers at midnight on weekdays and at 1:00am on Fridays and Saturday. That’s fine and resolves all my objections.
This move by Crest Hotels follows objections from Ludlow Town Council and myself. There may have been others. My objection sent to Shropshire Council is published and I believe the town council’s objection is along similar lines. I have formally withdrawn my objection because my concerns have been fully answered. The town council has called an “Extraordinary Meeting” of its Representational Committee on Wednesday to discuss the amended application. I am surprised this meeting is needed as Crest Hotels has answered the council’s objections as far as I know. But in any event, the path looks open for the licence application to be approved.
If the town council doesn’t withdraw its objection, the matter will need to go to a Shropshire Council licencing committee and that could delay approval of the licence by at least a month.
I don’t think this delay will happen. I look forward to the Feathers Hotel opening for food and drinks on 18 October as planned.