The Roundhay pub in Leeds releases statement to ‘reassure neighbours' over late-night opening plans

The Roundhay, on Roundhay Road, has asked the city council for permission to stay open until 1.30am on weekends and 12.30am the rest of the week – 90 minutes later than it currently shuts.

The pub, which is owned by brewery giants Greene King, has also asked for a restriction on using speakers outside the premises to be lifted. However, the boozer insists it doesn’t “currently” intend to use the extended opening hours every night, if the council grants the request.

It says the move will give it “flexibility” to show the likes of World Cup and boxing matches, as and when they’re on. It also insisted it had no plans to install outside speakers at the moment and that it had asked for the restriction to be lifted so it could potentially screen matches outside in future. The council will make a decision on whether or not to approve the application at a later date.

In a statement, a spokesperson for The Roundhay said: “We are proud to show live sport in our pub and have applied for a more flexible licence to avoid scenarios where we have to close halfway through a late-night boxing match, or can only open halfway through an early-morning World Cup match.

“We would like to reassure our neighbours that it is not currently our intention to extend our opening hours on a daily basis, but it is simply to give us the flexibility to do so on special occasions. We also don’t currently have any plans to install outside speakers, but requested the current restriction be lifted so we had the option in the future to show a match outside if we were investing in our outside space.”

Greene King was asked if it had considered using the temporary event notice (TEN) system, if it didn’t intend to make permanent use of any new licence it’s given. That system allows venues to hold one-off events or to extend their hours on specific days.

In response, the company said it would be tricky to use a TEN during a World Cup with back-to-back matches, because there must be 24 hours between each event.

It also said that premises are restricted to 20 TENs per year and that an event running past midnight would generally count as two, though under the Licensing Act venues are currently allowed to host up to 26 TENs per year until the end of 2023.

A spokesperson added: “Given the pub’s focus on sport they want to have flexibility to accommodate without using up the TEN allowance on it in case they were looking to put on a separate one-off event or similar.”