Earby hostel gets go-ahead for 24-hour films

1:26pm Friday 23rd May 2008

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A YOUTH hostel has been given the green light to provide 24-hour entertainment despite concerns from local residents over drunken youths.

Licensing officers gave the go-ahead for Earby Youth Hostel, Birch Hall Lane, to show films around the clock, hold live music events and put on plays.

But Pendle Council officers imposed a condition on the licence that the smoking area must be as far away as possible from neighbouring properties after resi-dents objected to plans for the 22-bed hostel, which is housed in a cottage.

The licence will also allow leaders at the hostel to provide refreshments between 10am and 11pm Sunday to Thursday and between 10am and midnight on Fridays and Saturdays.

The application was scaled down after talks with planners after an earlier bid for a licence allowing live music, sportsevents, plays and dance 24 hours a day.

Town Hall bosses bought the building for £180,000 in September 2006 and leased it to the Youth Hostel Association after a hcampaign by staff, councillors and the borough's MP, Gordon Prentice.

At a licensing committee meeting a neighbour, who had objected to the application through an earlier letter, claimed the hostel was a magnet for drunken youths.

A second resident, who also objected over drunken youths gather-ing outside the premises, did not attend the hearing.

A spokesperson for the council said: "The licence was granted but the hearing added that the youth club must designate an area to be used for smoking and that area be as far away as practicable from the neighbouring prop-erties."