Cricket club allowed to serve alcohol despite residents’ objections
A village cricket club can now open a bar for members and guests – but neighbours have said bad language and boozing in the grounds have put them on a sticky wicket.
Residents living near Church Eaton Cricket Club have spoken of damaged roof tiles and fence panels, cricket balls landing in back gardens, people bringing alcohol into the grounds and hearing regular swearing during the afternoon – and some now dread Saturdays as a result.
Members hope that opening a bar in the pavilion on match and practice days will control alcohol consumption in the grounds however, as well as raising much-needed funds for the club. And measures such as appointing a village liaison officer and passing on contact details for residents to raise any future issues were welcomed at a meeting on Wednesday (June 14).
Stafford Borough Council’s licensing sub-committee agreed to grant a club premises certificate. They added a condition that serving of alcohol must stop by 9.30pm, rather than the 10pm finish requested by the club.
There were no objections raised by police to the application and a series of conditions were agreed with the council’s environmental health department before Wednesday’s hearing. But the council received seven representations from 15 objectors on the grounds of potential noise nuisance.
Michael Faarup, who spoke at the hearing, said: “At the parish council meeting in May people spoke vehemently about the disturbance they have experienced. We all enjoy the cricket but in recent years the situation has deteriorated.
“We have had broken tiles on roofs, fence panels being damaged and abuse from players when asking to stop bowling towards fences. The extent of the problems is severe and it can only get worse.”
Fellow villager Rachel Millington said: “We want to get along with everybody and we want everybody to enjoy the sports field. But committee members have changed and the ethos has changed and it has become more loutish.
“Bad language is something that is becoming endemic in general. If you are in a garden in the middle of the afternoon you are hearing the F-word as a regular bit of vocabulary.
“It’s indicative of a lack of respect for residents. We are met quite often with abuse and that’s the problem with alcohol.
“We dread Saturdays coming round when there is a home match – we know what we are going to be faced with. The thought of more alcohol on the premises is just awful.”
Club treasurer Michael Trayte said signs had been installed to remind members and guests to respect neighbours, while the practice nets had been moved to the bottom of the ground so they would be further away from houses.
He added:”We plan to install CCTV as a security measure, so if there is any antisocial behaviour we can monitor it and find out who it was. It’s in our constitution to respect our neighbours.
“We take on board the committee has changed in recent times and maybe we as a club need to share key details for you so you can contact us and you are not going through a third party. We want to get on.
“When clubs come to play against us they ask if we’ve got a bar. We say no and they will go to Gnosall and buy a crate of beer – it’s an open field and we can’t stop them.
“But with us having a licence they won’t do that and we can control who we sell alcohol to. The licence is to serve alcohol to members, guests and members of the opposition team and particularly to raise funds for the club; bills are going up and the club needs income to survive.”
