Pub extended hours refused

Tonight we refused applications for extended opening hours until 2am from O’Neill’s in Ealing High Street and Edwards in New Broadway, at the first Licensing Sub-Committee meeting under the Council’s new alcohol licensing powers. I sat on the panel with Cllr Laurence Evans (Acton Central) and the much-respected Tory Chief Whip Cllr Diana Pagan (Hanger Hill), together with a bigger than normal turnout of observers.

The key issue that we considered for both pubs was the implications of their applications on our agreed special area zone policy on cumulative impact, which applies to the particular ‘problem areas’ at the core of central Ealing (see my post on 6th September). This policy means that there is a general presumption against any new or extended licences in this area, unless it can be shown that they would not worsen the problems already being experienced locally with drinking and entertainment. We’re publishing our full decision in the next few days.

This is probably one of the first cases in the country where a council has refused applications for extended hours in an area with such a cumulative impact policy. Next week, I’m chairing a Sub-Committee meeting deciding upon two further applications for longer hours for pubs in the zone – the North Star and All Bar One.

Had a fascinating afternoon before hand talking to Lou Kenton – the senior Labour Party member in Acton (see my post on 22nd September). Lou is now 97, and I and John Delaney talked with him today mainly about sport. Lou is keen that the Council builds on the Ashes success to promote cricket in the Borough, and I agreed to talk to the Council’s Head of ‘Active Ealing’ (the sports development team) about what is happening. When I rang him (Paul Hyman) later on, he told me the good news that three new cricket squares are being created in the Borough this year – one in each of East Acton, Ealing and Hanwell.

John, Phil and Lou

Lou’s sporting experience covers an incredible range of 20th Century events. He was at the famous ‘white horse’ Cup Final in 1923 (the first to be held at Wembley) ; saw the great Jack Hobbs play cricket for Surrey as part of his 29 year first class career (the best cricketer Lou has ever seen) ; and took Emil Zatopek on his tour of Britain around the 1948 London Olympics. Zatopek won the 10,000 metres at London and then achieved his never-bettered ‘Zatopek triple' at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics – in my book, the greatest athletic achievement of the post war years. See more on Zatopek at http://www.runningpast.com/emil_zatopek.htm

We also talked football, and Lou recounted his experience of playing in a trade union tournament in Germany in 1932. Lou was playing for the British Workers Sports Federation, and their final game in Essen drew a crowd of 30,000. Lou and the other British players had to be protected from Nazis who invaded the crowd to disrupt the game. In the same period Lou played football in the Stepney Sunday Football League, which was chaired by the local MP for Limehouse Clement Attlee – later Britain’s greatest peacetime Prime Minister.

Beat that for a sporting lifetime.



Clement Attlee (left) with his predecessor as Labour Leader, George Lansbury - who my mum tells me was a friend of my great-grandfather John Phillips, when they both lived in Bow in the 1890s.