Witham residents have won their fight to stop a nightclub opening close to their homes which they feared would disturb their sleep and increase vandalism.

Applicants for the Stuart Surridge Snooker Centre, Mr Paul Blower, and his son Mark Blower, who is manager of the club, had pinned their hopes on winning an appeal against Braintree council's decision to block their plan to convert it into a nightclub.

But planning inspector, Lucy Drake, last week agreed with residents in the Grove development who feared that late night revellers would create noise and disturbance.

This week, Mrs Sandra Howell and her husband Peter, of Armiger Way, who would have been one of the worst affected, were celebrating the inspector's decision.

"It sounds as if we don't want anything for the young, but that is not the case," said 55-year-old Mrs Howell.

"We already suffer from late night noise and vandalism from people using the walkway which runs alongside our house, that connects to the snooker centre.

"We made this point at the appeal and the inspector came to see for herself, that one wall has had trellis ripped off so many times, it is actually crumbling away."

"Opening the nightclub would, it was predicted have resulted in hundreds more people using the area and this would have made the situation far worse. This is a very quiet estate and it doesn't take too many people shouting at up to 4am in the morning, which was the envisaged closing time, to disturb your sleep.

In her report, planning inspector Lucy Drake commented: "Noise, nuisance and vandalism can be caused by a single person, although probably more commonly arises from small groups of people.

''To someone trying to sleep, being awakened even once a month by unexpected noise which could be a group of people talking loudly or shouting to others, with no malice intended, can seem an unacceptable level of disturbance.

''Added to the possibility of damage to property once or twice a year with fear of higher frequencies can significantly affect their quality of life."

''Even if just two or three per cent of its patrons used the footpath link through the Grove and even if most of these had due respect for the residents, there is the potential for a significant increase in the current levels of noise, and disturbance, especially in the early hours of the morning."

No one from the snooker centre was available for comment this week.

Discussing the planning application previously, Mark Blower had commented: "This will be a smart, well run club in an ideal location, we see this as a positive move which will really put Witham on the map."

The new club, he had said, would have closed circuit cameras inside and out and security staff.

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