Welcome to the newly-established web site of Clerkenwell’s three Liberal Democrat councillors.

We’ve launched this to help keep us in touch with you and to help bring you useful information about what is going on in the area and how to influence it.

We’ll be bringing more and more detail onto the site over the next few days and weeks, but we needed to bring it into operation straight away to deal with some urgent issues about a proposed nightclub, which are is the next item on this site.

The new “Ghost” nightclub, at 117 Farringdon Road, duly opened in the early hours of Sunday 15th February.

George Allan writes:

“I’ve been getting reports of serious noise and disturbance waking up local residents from 2.00am and lating until well into mid-morning.  The problems were - as predicted here - noise from arriving and departing patrons, parking and obstruction and consequent hooting of car horns.   

Meanwhile, the Club’s application for a Licence comes up at Islington’s Licensing Committee meeting on Monday 23rd February at 10.00am in Islington Town Hall.  The papers for this are available here.

The new Club is applying to Islington Council for variations to the 24/7 licence previously held by Wetherspoon’s Print Works pub, and local residents living in the vicinity (only) were able to make objections on or before 6th February 2009.  You can still attend the meeting on 23rd even if you did not object, as it is a meeting in public. The variations would remove many of the safeguards imposed on Wetherspoons and increase capacity from 290 to 400 patrons.

There are major concerns about the suitability of the premises to be a night club, but the promoters have not yet applied for the planning permission required for this change. 

The recent openings have taken place under a “Temporary Event Notice” - a back-door way in which the Licensing Act 2003  allows dancing, drinking etc for up to 72 hour periods, without making a full licence application.  Only the police can object to a TEN and up to 12 TENs a year can be used.  

Clerkenwell has developed as a major centre for late-night clubs and pubs and this has caused considerable problems to local residents.  We are currently helping three groups of residents with these, and the Council has recently launched a “Clerkenwell Charter” for local pubs etc to sign up to.

If you have problems with the management of local licensed premises, let us know and we will be happy to help you.