Sainsbury's Liquor Licence will end at 9pm
We are pleased to report that Sainsbury's have acquiesced to community demands that their proposed new local store in the High Street on the site of M & Co has a termination time for alcohol sales of 9.00pm 7 days a week.Whilst we and many in the community would have preferred a much earlier closing time on Sundays we were advised that unless we could prove that there would be increased disorder on a Sunday between 6 pm and 9 pm as compared to other days during the week (which we could not) we had no grounds for pursuing this to a successful conclusion. Many thanks to Alistair Mann the Chair of the Chamber of Commerce for so successfully conducting the negotiations on behalf of the community with Sainsbury's legal adviser and to Cathy Cott the owner of Phoenix in Church Street and her barrister Sarah Clover QC for their constant advice and encouragement.
Our community is at its strongest when the CDRA, The Chamber and ourselves all work together as we have done in this case; thank you to both. We shall now be withdrawing our objections and supporting the application and whilst it is for each objector to decide his or her course of action it would be nice if we could dispense with the hearing on 13th May. This is a victory for common sense and for the community.
It just remains for us to thank every one of you who sent in valid objections because it was only on the strength of these that we were able to change the course of events thank you again for your support.
