A NEW Weymouth town centre takeaway has been given a licence to trade until the early hours.

Town residents claim it could add to disturbance and disorder.

There had been objections to the change at what used to be a family restaurant on the corner of St Mary’s Street and St Edmund Street.

The business, previously trading as The Corner House Café and Pooh Corner, will now be able to offer takeaway food until 4am on Fridays and Saturdays; until 1am for the rest of the week and until 3am on Sundays falling on a bank holiday weekend.

A Dorset Council licensing panel has granted the indoor late night refreshment licence to Mr Osman Tanyel with conditions around CCTV recording, only serving drinks in plastic bottles or cans and no under 18s on the premises after 11pm.

Throughout the summer period from Easter and at Christmas and New Year the premises will also have to employ two door staff from midnight until the door is closed.

A solicitor for Mr Tanyel told a council licensing panel that having another takeaway in the town, likely to be called Baps & Pitta, would increase the choice for those out late and result in less queuing overall, reducing the potential for problems.

He argued that the insistence on two door supervisors was disproportionate and not a condition imposed on some other premises in the town centre selling food.

The business is expected to employ three full-time and one part time staff and will have 16 seats inside for customers. Only minor changes are being proposed to the outside of the building.

Among the objectors to the licence was the Respect Weymouth group whose representative, Mr Nigel Shearing, argued that because there were public seats in the area nearby people were more likely to congregate and eat their takeaway food there  – potentially leading to nuisance for people living in the area, including in flats above the takeaway. He was also concerned about people using the streets as a toilet.

Cllr Luke Wakeling from Weymouth town council told the hearing that it would be a good idea for the business to retain an inner door, which the applicant wanted to remove, to help keep noise down and that the toilet on the premises should be available to customers and not closed at 11pm, as suggested.

He said there were no public loos in the town available 24 hours a day.