RESIDENTS fear a new bistro serving booze and playing music close to children’s playground will have a negative impact on the area.

The owner of Herbies One Stop shop, in Shaftesbury Avenue, Southend, is building a bistro-type café next door to his premises, opposite the children’s playground in Southchurch Park. 

A Southend Council licensing hearing took place yesterday after 15 objections were submitted by residents over the bistro’s bid to sell alcohol.

Shaftesbury Avenue resident Rebecca Everitt said: “Alcohol and music will create additional noise for neighbouring properties.

“As a lifelong resident of the area I have serious concerns about the impact on children. The café is opposite a child’s playground and the school run to Greenways Primary School. The idea that adults could be drinking alcohol as young children walk past on their route to and from school or when the playing directly opposite in the playground is unimaginable.”

Susan Badger, Independent councillor for Thorpe Ward, read a letter of objection to the committee before outlining her own concerns around “public nuisance and crime and disorder”.

Fellow Independent for Thorpe Ward, Martin Terry, added: “Location is my issue. This is not a place where you would normally see licensed premises of this nature.

“It’s purely residential. If we allow this to go through we’re setting a precedent in the area. This is not right for the area considering the residents, the school children, the playground over the road and the noise, I would hope that the committee refuse this application.”

The bistro, currently being constructed, would be open from 8am to 6pm, and will employ 14 people. There will be 36 covers inside and 28 outside the premises which will only play background music and would only sell alcohol with food.

At the hearing, Andrew Murrell, agent for the owner Anjesh Patel, said Mr Patel had had run Herbies as an off-licence from 6am to 11pm for nine years without incident. Mr Murrell said a petition had signed by 70 customers at Herbies in support of the application.

He said: “No way is this going to be a bar or a club or disco. All the fears that have been put forward as what’s going to happen, the undesirables and the dreadful things that will occur as a result of the application, are, in my submission, fantasy. They are speculation. That’s not the reality.”