A PLAN to extend a Stourbridge High Street pub beer garden to create an outdoor drinking area for 100 people has been withdrawn.

JD Wetherspoon had applied to extend a small external smoking area at The Chequers Inn into the pub’s bin store area to create new beer garden.

The application, however, has been withdrawn after complaints were submitted to Dudley Council planners from residents concerned about noise pollution.

A total of 12 objection letters from local residents were submitted to council planners.

The council’s environmental safety and health team also recommended refusal of the application.

In a report to the council, they said: “The application proposes landscaping to form a beer garden of the triangular shaped plot of open land between the Chequers Inn and the Court Chambers building.

“The proposals include the creation of a new double door entrance, associated glazing panels to the side and indicates seating arrangements to accommodate 100 customers up to the boundary with Court Chambers to the west.

“This would represent a significant increase in activity and an enlarged drinking area; currently there is a small smoking area provision in the locality.

“The high reflective walls of the public house will give an acoustically hard environment which will lend itself to reverberant noise.

“Given the proximity of residential dwellings which would directly overlook the proposed drinking area and considering the opening hours of the public house, it is my opinion that this proposal would result in unreasonable noise impacts upon the residents of Court Chambers and potentially other nearby residents, I am therefore unable to support this application.”

The report noted external seating had already been installed and branded information provided with the application calculating the likely noise as “severely flawed”.

Recommending refusal of the application, the report concluded: “It is the opinion of ESH that the proposed development would result in a fundamental change to the character and acoustic climate of the immediate area and that the operation of an external seating area as proposed is likely to give rise to adverse impacts from noise on existing residents.”

JD Wetherspoon did not wish to comment on the plan.