SWINDON Council’s environmental enforcement and anti-social behaviour chiefs are opposing a pub’s bid to extend the hours it can play music until as late as 2am.

The Queen’s Tap, in Station Road, in the town centre, can currently play music and sell alcohol from 11am to 11pm, Monday to Wednesday, and between 11am and midnight, Thursday to Saturday.

Owner Punch Taverns Plc has applied to the council to extend this to between 8am and midnight, Monday to Wednesday, and 8am to 2am, Thursday to Saturday. Sunday stoppage time would remain at 11pm.

Damon Green, the council’s environmental enforcement team leader, said late music hours would disturb residents and undermine the council’s licensing objective to prevent public nuisance.

There is currently one open complaint about noise from the premises.

Simon Evans, the anti-social behaviour manager and a resident in the area, has objected for the same reasons.

Punch Taverns, which owns hundreds of pubs across the UK, has also asked for the pub’s licence to be altered to allow it to show entertainment such as plays, films, indoor spectator sports, wrestling and dance performances.

The firm has offered to take additional steps to tackle potential problems, including fitting CCTV cameras covering all trading areas, smoking areas and entrance areas, and clearing the bar of customers within 30 minutes of it closing.

However, Mr Green says the measures do not go far enough to prevent noise nuisance, which is already a problem for nearby residents in several blocks of flats.

In an email, he said: “I note from the application that it is proposed that both recorded and live music should be allowed to continue until 2am on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights and, further, that there are no proposed mitigations or precautions under the heading ‘prevention of public nuisance’.

“I would have serious concerns about any extension of hours for this licensed premises due to its proximity to noise sensitive premises; especially Wellington House (62 residential flats), and Isambard Place (47 residential flats).

“Residents of Wellington House (approximately 25-30ft from the southern façade of the premises) especially will doubtless be unreasonably disturbed by the proposed extension as they overlook the premises, and are very close to it.”

Mr Evans added: “As a resident I would strongly object to this extension.

“The noise from the pub at present disturbs residents in Isambard Place. An example is karaoke being sung very loud on the Tuesday 21/5/13 until 2am.

“I don’t think the pub was open – I guess that it was a lock-in – but this noise level is a regular pain to all of us that live in the area.”

Swindon Council’s licensing committee are scheduled to consider the application on Monday.

A spokeswoman for Punch Taverns said: “We can confirm an application has been submitted and we are awaiting a decision to be made by the licensing authorities.”