A village pub has been allowed to extend its opening hours despite noise fears raised by neighbours.

New management at the White Oak pub on The Pound in Cookham asked for permission to sell alcohol as early as 9am and late as midnight. They can also now play live and recorded music on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, and allow the sale of alcohol outdoors.

Some neighbours warned that they would be ‘blighted’ with noise if the extended opening hours were approved. But councillors at the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead said they’d seen ‘no evidence’ that licensing restrictions would be breached.

Members of the council’s licensing made their decision after pub owners and neighbours made their cases at a hearing on September 2.

READ MORE: The White Oak in Cookham reopens under new management

Nicholas Jones, who lives on Terry’s Lane in Cookham said neighbours would be ‘blighted’ with noise.

He said: “The noise nuisance from the pub is not just during the night, it’s during the day as well.”

Mr Jones added that promises to keep the doors and windows closed when music is on were ‘absolute cloud cuckoo land – it will never happen’.

He said: “Unless someone stands there from the police monitoring it all the time they will just ignore it and therefore we will get blighted with more and more noise.”

Jonathan Ford who lives opposite the pub said the increases in opening hours would ‘by their very nature increase noise disturbance’.

And Fiona Beaumont from the Cookham Association said later licensing hours might encourage ‘merry and loud customers’ to move on to the White Oak after the nearby Swan Uppers pub closes.

But pub owners from the Brucan Pubs company say the later hours won’t fundamentally change the White Oak as a food-led gastropub.

Speaking on their behalf, Piers Warne from TLT solicitors said the changes would allow for later dining, making the pub more viable to run. He said: “This is about trying to augment what we do. This isn’t a Wetherspoon-type operation. It isn’t people coming in for a quick fry-up and a pint of Amstel. It’s very much a different proposition to that.”

Mr Warne said the main reason for wanting to extend the license for sale of alcohol outdoors was to allow waiting staff to take orders and payments from handheld devices. He said there would not be a permanent bar in the beer garden, but that there might be the ‘odd occasion’ where alcohol is sold from ‘a couple of trestle tables’ at functions.

After hearing the arguments, councillors ruled they’d been given ‘no evidence’ that licensing rules would be breached. They said if there were noise issues, these could be reported to the council and owners could be brought back for a licencing review.

The councillors also noted that if there had been no objections, council licencing officers would have allowed the extended hours without the need for a hearing. They agreed unanimously to approve the application.