A former social club in Preston is to be turned into a snooker hall after planners ruled the sport was sufficiently quiet for the residential street where it will now be played.
Preston City Council has given the green light to the green baize conversion of the building that previously operated as Fishwick Ramblers Working Men’s Club, on Mornington Road.
A single-storey extension will be added to the rear of the two-floor structure in order to accommodate the snooker tables that will now become its main attraction.
The venue will open seven days a week from 10am until midnight. However, two public objections were submitted to the plans, with concerns including the potential for increased noise and disturbance, as well as possible parking problems in the narrow street.
However, in a report outlining their reasons for approving the proposal, town hall planners noted that the facility will operate in a similar way – and for similar hours – to the old social club, adding:
“It is arguable that a snooker hall would have less of an impact on neighbouring amenity given the nature of the sport being played there.”
Highways bosses at Lancashire County Council did not object to the revamp on parking grounds. The site’s 17-space car park will be available for the club’s new patrons, while the venue lies close to bus routes in and out of the city centre on nearby New Hall Lane.
Planners acknowledged that while the change would, strictly speaking, mean the loss of community facilities, the building has long been disused – and its repurposing would “provide an indoor recreational facility which would be accessible to members of the local community and beyond.
The rear extension will be 16.5m wide and 3.2m high, protruding almost eight metres from the back of the building in its current form – a size considered “acceptable” by the local authority.
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