A restaurant and bar could have its licence removed after complaints over loud music – and the owner says that would sound the death knell for the business.

Wicks Bar & Grill in Knowle, north of Fareham, will have its premises licence reviewed by Winchester City Council following public nuisance complaints.

Its owner George Madgwick believes the review is ‘not fair’.

Mr Madgwick, who is also a Portsmouth city councillor, said: "We’ve worked closely with their environment and health department since December – everything they’ve asked us to do they’ve declined or they’ve set us up for failure.

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"As it got to May we were meant to have the opportunity to look at soundproofing but they never gave us the chance to implement it.

"They stopped our agreement, didn’t allow us to do any soundproofing, didn’t listen to our recommendations, they just went straight to review which is why I don’t think it’s necessarily fair.

"If they remove it we close down – Knowle village is a very small community, it’s not a massively dense area.

"Eighty-two per cent of our income in December was from live music, if you look at April this year 86 per cent of our revenue was from live events.

"We’re also the only employer in the village – and we’re the only hub in the village.

"There is no other pub, club, coffee bar there is nothing, we’re the only thing that unites the community."

The premises is permitted to play live music and entertainment between 8am and 11pm on any given day for audiences less than 500 people.

Cllr Madgwick - who also stood unsuccessfully for Winchester City Council at the last election - said he has offered to reduce live music events to once a week between 6pm and 10pm and install soundproofing foam in the next three months.

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The licensing sub-committee, which will take place on July 25, will review whether the application promotes licensing objectives.

In a letter of representation Shawna King, who lives near the restaurant, says the live music makes her feel ‘very anxious’.

She said: "When we first bought our house Wicks was not playing live music, we knew it only as a restaurant, then Covid lifted and 2022 came and nearly every weekend they were playing very loud live music until 11pm.

"This has really affected us because we feel anxious every weekend, not knowing if we can relax on a Friday/Saturday evening because of the loud music.

"If we’d known what we were going to be living next to, we would have never bought the house, which is such a shame."

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