A pub Hanwell will be allowed to serve alcohol from an outside bar in its garden despite complaints from some local residents who tried to thwart the plan by handing out leaflets to local homes.

The Fox, which is close to the Hanwell Flight of Locks, applied to Ealing Council to open a bar in its garden until 8.30pm when the weather allows.

The owners said this would help them serve customers in the garden without them having to traipse into the pub.

Some neighbours resorted to putting leaflets through people's doors encouraging them to oppose the application because they said it would make the already excessive noise levels coming from the pub garden even worse.

But their efforts backfired when greater numbers of residents wrote to Ealing Council in support of the bar and accused their opponents of wanting to close down the pub.

The Fox pub in Hanwell will be allowed to serve alcohol from a garden bar up until 8.30pm when the weather permits
The Fox pub in Hanwell will be allowed to serve alcohol from a garden bar up until 8.30pm when the weather permits

Neighbour Kathy Thomas wrote: "One of the good things about Old Hanwell is that it does have The Fox as a real community hub where you can meet and chat to friends and neighbours.

"There are whole swathes of 'new' Hanwell north of the Uxbridge Road and in Northfields where late Victorian land owners prohibited pubs in residential areas and I am concerned that the complainant has an ultimate agenda to make our 'village' pub unviable.

"We have already had our use of the pub garden limited in terms of hours and we do not have the musical events which we used to enjoy, all in an effort to show consideration to the people who purchased in Mallard Close but there has to be a limit.

"One or more of them cannot be allowed to dictate what facilities local people can have."

Lynne McMullan who lives next door to the pub said the outside bar would make no difference to noise levels.

"The pub is popular with local families when the weather is good because it has a garden," she wrote. "Yes, I can hear them - adults and children - but in the same way I can hear other neighbours if they have a BBQ and invite friends and family.

"The outside bar at weekends if the weather is good will not change the level of noise. There is a finite capacity for seating outside and that will not change so there will not be an increase in numbers using the garden."

The council's environmental health team had already raised concerns with the pub about noise in the garden and external areas .

In response the pub's owners had agreed in August this year to restrict the use of the garden and other outside areas to 9.30pm where they had been previously used until 11.20pm.

Among opponnets of the bar, Councillor Anna Tomlinson who represents Hobbayne Ward, but lives near the pub, wrote to the council saying the plans would "make the disruption and noise we suffer much worse, by bringing in more customers to the pub and the garden adding the noise of people shouting orders over the bar and by adding to the already serious parking issues in the vicinity of the pub".

The licensing team agreed to allow the outside bar at a meeting of the council's licensing panel on Wednesday, September 5.