Anger as seventh bar applies to open in street

By Robert Firth, Local Democracy Reporter

Residents fear their street is turning into a ‘boozy strip’ after a seventh bar applied to open in the road.

Immortals Wine Bar wants to serve alcohol until midnight every day in a former barber shop in Lewisham Way, New Cross.

But people living in the road said it is already saturated with noisy drinking haunts and doesn’t need any more.

They claim they already have to step over people drinking and smoking on the pavement outside their homes, and fear the problem will get worse if another bar is allowed to open.

Speaking against the bar’s application at a Lewisham council licensing meeting on Tuesday of last week, resident Naomi Fraser said she and her neighbours were concerned about potential disruption from another drinking place opening up.

She said: “This road already has six licensed premises in it, most of whom already have a late licence.

“It feels like yet again another business is going to come in. It’s not really competition. It’s saturating the area to be honest.

“It runs the risk of this piece of area, because it is so close to other businesses of this kind, becoming a little bit of an antisocial strip of bars and pubs every single day. It’s just really worrying.”

Resident Louise Derbyshire said antisocial behaviour linked to bars in the area was preventing her and her neighbours from enjoying their homes in peace.

She said: “Currently we have people in our pathway, smoking, drinking and this is going to be exacerbated.

“The current disruption is caused by other premises in the area and frequently I have to walk down my path with people sitting on both sides of it to get to my front door.

“It’s intimidating, it’s uncomfortable, it’s unsafe and it’s not acceptable, trying to get keys out of your bag while they’re sitting in the pathway.”

Andreusse Elliott, owner of Immortals Wine Bar, said he wanted to create a place where students could come to work and relax and had no intention to run the venue like a nightclub.

He told the meeting: “A lot of the university students and college students that I know and see on a daily basis, I was trying to create somewhere they could come and literally use it as a workspace, alongside watching sports, drinking alcohol and a place where you can have gatherings. I’m not trying to open a nightclub.”

While acknowledging some residents had objected, Mr Elliott said most locals he’d spoken to were supportive of his plans to bring the derelict property back into use.

Lewisham council will announce its decision on whether to let the bar open at a later date.

Pictured top: The bar could open in a former barber shop in Lewisham Way (Picture: Google Street View)