Birstall Londis gets alcohol licence despite residents’ objection

Local people recently attended the Kirklees Council’s Licensing Panel meeting to raise their concerns, speaking of previous incidents involving gunshots, public intimidation, and urination on driveways.

Residents argued that anti-social behaviour increased when there was a licensed store in the area as it attracted “unruly gangs.” One objector said: “we residents do not want to return to being intimidated, threatened on our own property or fearing for our safety.”

This comes as the premises for the new Londis on Leeds Road were used commercially for many years, previously being a McColl’s general store. However, this reportedly came with several problems, from an increase in anti-social behaviour, to residents being unable to enter their driveways due to them being blocked by customers.

When McColl’s closed in 2018, there was said to be “a distinct improvement for residents.”

Resident Linda Harrison said on behalf of herself and fellow resident Sandra Renshaw: “what was a valuable asset to the community became a liability and a nuisance. There have been more unruly gangs hanging over the walls, throwing their rubbish regardless of a litter bin, discarding their beer cans, many of them underage drinkers.

"They’re a noisy nuisance, they often used to jump over a wall into our garden and urinate down the drive and when you’d ask them to stop their disgusting behaviour, you got greeted with verbal abuse. That happened many times.

“we feel that if the shop opens to sell alcohol once again it will encourage unwanted gatherings, abuse, underage drinking quite probably, bring crime back into the area and cause even more traffic and parking problems and we residents do not want to return to being intimidated, threatened on our own property of fearing for our safety. For these reasons we strongly, and I mean strongly object.”

Birstall and Birkenshaw councillor Elizabeth Smaje (Conservative) also attended the meeting to object to the licensing application. The coun spoke of long-term traffic experienced issues on the road and explained that vehicles parked outside of the shop would be a hazardous as they would be near to a large junction.

She went on to say: “Delivery vans often blocked Roebuck Street, often blocked other properties, cars parked down Roebuck Street which is a private road, and not being able to get out of your own property because of cars blocking is not something that residents want to return to. They’ve had a quiet time whilst this shop has been closed.”

Despite this, Patrick Burke from PMB Licencing highlighted on behalf of the applicant that no objection had been received from any authority including the police or child welfare services. He said: “If it previously caused a multitude of issues being licensed as McColl’s then the police would be saying hang on, we’re a bit concerned about this.”

Despite the opposition, the licence was approved by the panel for the hours of 7 am to 10 pm with the condition that external CCTV is installed to catch any issues that should arise to assist the police. Chair of the panel, Coun Amanda Pinnock (Ashbrow, Labour), urged residents to ask for a review of the licence should problems arise.