Neighbours of a residents’ leisure centre fear allowing it to open a bar next to its swimming pool could lead to a fatality.
V&S, which manages the Emerald Quay complex in Shoreham, applied for a licence for the bar in the communal leisure centre.
But residents said the previous bar’s management, who would be running the bar again, had sold alcohol to non-members, allowed children in the bar late at night and putting on live entertainment and TV sport without a licence.
And one said he had even been threatened by the proposed landlady’s husband after writing to object to V&S’s application.
After extra conditions were proposed by management at a meeting of Adur District Council’s licensing panel on Monday, councillors agreed to grant the licence.
The bar was previously used for a residents’ club called The Mooring – but its licence was surrendered in May 2023, having not been open since the pandemic. It is now used as a community space, and is known as The Compass.
One written objection, from a resident whose details were redacted by the council, said: “The club premises has direct access to the leisure centre which includes a swimming pool with no lifeguard in attendance.
“There have been issues in the past with unsupervised alcohol consumption in the pool area and by granting a licence this will increase the possibility of a fatality.”
Another objector, whose details were also redacted, said: “When the bar was open previously, there was a locked door between the two, but the current management have announced plans to convert that to residents’ fob access.
“The pool has no lifeguards, and so this raises the risk of inebriated people heading straight from the bar to the pool, causing risk to their own lives, and possibly causing risk to families using the pool.”
A third said: “The premises used are a community facility paid for and maintained by all leaseholders on Emerald Quay and is used by them for community events.
“The running of a public bar would preclude a lot of these events from taking place.
“In the past, when run by the same people, residents have received verbal abuse as well as threats of physical violence from people leaving the premises.”
Monday’s panel heard from Robin Phillips, who said he had lived in Emerald Quay for 17 years and when it was previously run as a bar, there had been issues with noise and antisocial behaviour until the early hours of the morning.
He added: “While I didn’t receive offers of mediation from [the applicant], I did receive threats from Mark Sharp, the husband of the responsible person for the licence [Lesley Anne Pritchard], telling me I would need to find a new home by the new year.
“That has now been placed in the hands of Sussex Police and is currently under investigation.”
Another long-term resident, Lorna Tinworth, said: “There is a close relationship between the board directors and the person who’s going to be the designated person running the bar, and her husband.
“He’s been permitted to oversee some quite significant refurbishment work on our pool so I feel the relationship isn’t particularly professional.
“Who has oversight? That’s my concern.”
V&S secretary Adrian Clark said there were no plans to run the bar as a sports pub, but as a place for local residents.
He said: “The previous licence was removed without consultation which a number of members complained about.
“Our goal is to replace something that was previously in place and removed without consultation with the majority of residents of the estate.
“The number of objectors is something in the region of five per cent of the residents of the estate. We’ve had mails in support of us putting it back to how it was.
“We would like to assure the objectors that the current usage of that community space, there are no plans to change that in any way.”
He said that although the previous management asked for people to staff the bar via Facebook, those volunteers were always familiar with how the bar worked.
He said that although glasses and alcohol had previously been found by the pool, he believed none of this had come from the bar.
Sussex Police requested conditions if a licence granted, including CCTV, staff training and a Challenge 25 policy, all of which were agreed by V&S.
The councillors questioned why the licence application asked for lengthy opening hours – 10am until midnight – if they were intending on only opening on weekend evenings.
Mr Clark said they had simply copied and pasted the terms of the previous licence.
Mr Clark suggested extra conditions requiring a sign-in book and list of members being made, a five-person limit on the number of guests a member could sign in per day, and membership being limited to residents.
The panel agreed to grant the licence, with the conditions agreed with Sussex Police and those proposed by Mr Clark at the hearing.
