Fatboy Slim supports campaign to preserve West Sussex music venue; Council has 'suggested a further meeting'

The Duke of Wellington is taking measures to safeguard its long-term future by pursuing a judicial review – that will ‘challenge the permission granted’ to developers of the former Civic Centre site on Brighton Road in Shoreham.

Housing association Hyde Group has been granted permission to build 159 affordable homes on the land next to the pub.

Norman Cook – aka Fatboy Slim – met with the pub team last week to discuss how they will battle against the planning application (AWDM/1450/21).

Adur District Council has since reiterated that the plans ‘will not affect the nearby pub’s wish to play live music’.

Steve Neocleous, Adur's cabinet member for regeneration and strategic planning, said: “If a deed of easement for noise is the final piece in the jigsaw that will give the Duke of Wellington the comfort needed, and allows the affordable housing to proceed, then we will do all we can to agree an approach that removes this threat of judicial review.

“We have suggested a further meeting with the pub owners next week to discuss this and to try to agree an approach.”

It has been suggested the new development could potentially result in tenants of the new homes opposing the pub’s music licence – which currently allows it to play live music every Wednesday and Saturday evening, when it is due to be reviewed.

The pub said that it has, since 2019, been asking the council to ‘ensure that an effective legal mechanism’ known as a Deed of Easement of Noise ‘be adopted’.

A spokesperson said: “This would be in line with planning guidance that aims to protect existing community pubs and music venues. As seen in so many other examples across the country, noise complaints from new residents can result in the closure of venues such as ours.

"Venues that are home to a thriving community, arts and music scene and make an important contribution to the culture, social life and vibrancy of an area.”

The spokesperson said a planning committee meeting in March 2022 ‘recognised the value’ of the pub and a ‘resolution was passed to include a legal covenant’ as a planning condition to ‘provide protection for the pub against noise complaints’.

"After a long delay however, the decision recently published makes clear that this covenant completely fails to prevent future residents from successfully bringing claims against the pub,” the spokesperson said. “As things stand therefore, the pub remains unprotected.”

The pub called on the council to ‘use its leverage’ with developers ‘in the same way it did to save the poplar tree next to the pub’.

They added: “Our attempts to seek a variation to the s106 agreement were ignored by the planning department's legal team, and regrettably this has set in motion a judicial review which could prove costly to all parties.

“A strong pub community, along with backers from the music industry will be committed to securing a deed of easement for the pub. Its long term future becomes a priority as developments creep in from all sides with land on the other side of the pub also earmarked for development, there are concerns that a bad precedent is set by this poorly managed s106 agreement.”

The pub said there is ‘a lot of understandable concern’ about the overdevelopment of Shoreham and the ‘inadequacy of its creaking infrastructure’.

The spokesperson said: “For many of us, the future of cultural venues like the Welly which lie at the heart of a vibrant community is equally important. Our planning department meanwhile, would seem content through casual indifference, to let the town slip into being another soulless suburb; enabling developers to profit instead of valuing and protecting the community it is supposed to serve.”

Adur District Council said it is committed to doing all it can to ‘help ease the housing crisis’ and ‘delivering these 159 affordable homes is a big part of that’.

The council an initial agreement was made in the planning process that – when approved – would see additional noise measures such as additional sound-proofing in the block adjacent to the pub, and obligations on the future owners to maintain them for the lifetime of the development.

There is also a covenant by the development owners not to bring or support a noise nuisance claim against the pub, providing it operates within its existing licence conditions.

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