Council tells riverside pubs at Strand on the Green to remove outside seating

The Bull’s Head

Bulls Head and City Barge also told to remove drinks shelves from towpath railings

Two of the pubs along the river at Strand on the Green have been told to remove all their outside seating and two have been told to remove shelves they had attached to the towpath railings so customers could sit on the towpath facing the river.

The Bull’s Head, the City Barge and the Bell & Crown have all received a visit from one of Hounslow’s officers in the past week after the Bull’s Head put in an application to renew its licence for outside seating.

When a copy was sent to local councillors, Cllr Rick Rowe responded saying the pictures in the licence application did not include the railings or the seating beside them. He asked Council officers to check if they had permission for them, and to check the licences of the other two pubs on Strand on the Green at the same time.

“Residents like to go for a walk along there in the evening, particularly when there’s a nice sunset. Several people have said to me that when it’s crowded in the evenings it is difficult to get through with chairs on both sides”.

Bulls Head on Sunday, showing ample space for a double buggy

Bull’s Head has been told they can keep their tables

Magda, the Bull’s Head general manager, and her partner Rich Jordan took over the running of the pub two years ago and inherited the outside tables with benches, which have been there as long as any of their customers can remember.

They replaced the tables with new ones earlier this year and put up shelves on the railings alongside the river a few weeks ago, similar to those already put up by The City Barge next door, also Greene King pub, so customers could perch on high stools and have somewhere to put their drink overlooking the strand.

Rick told The Chiswick Calendar they have been told they can continue to have outside tables and seating but must take down shelves, which they did as soon as they were told to do so.

The railings are the property of Hounslow Highways. The licence conditions say there must be at least a metre and a half free for people to walk along the towpath.

The Bull’s Head has five tables outside the pub each seating six people, a couple of benches alongside the pub wall, and four tables for two. They are now waiting for confirmation of the renewal of their licence for outside furniture.

The City Barge

The City Barge told to remove its tables and chairs from the riverside

The City Barge also has outside seating on the riverside and has had shelves on the railings for some time. They have been told to remove their tables and chairs by Monday (29 June) and were also told to take their shelves down from the towpath railings.

Nick Ivanov, the acting general manager who is currently running the City Barge along with two other Greene King pubs as interim manager until a new general manager is found for the City Barge, told The Chiswick Calendar they did not have a licence for outside seating but as far as he understood it they did not need one, as the pub owns the 1.5 metres of land adjacent to the pub on the river side.

The matter is now in the hands of Greene King’s solicitors.

No more shelves on the railings

They have taken down the shelving, as he accepts they do not have permission to put drinks shelves on the railings. They are also removing the seating on Monday “just in case”, while the matter is settled, he told us, and will apply for a licence in due course if they need to.

Nick has plans to develop the pub and create a beer garden on Thames Road.

READ ALSO: The City Barge at Strand on the Green plan to open a beer garden

He also decided a month ago they would no longer be members of The Chiswick Calendar’s Club Card scheme (without telling us!) Apparently large groups have been coming in and passing one Club Card around between them as they buy rounds, which he has taken exception to.

Drinkers by the riverside at the Bell & Crown in May

Bell & Crown told to remove its tables and chairs from outside the pub

The Bell and Crown do not have shelves on the railings and never have done. They do not have railings directly outside the pub. They did have seats along the river wall and outside tables for which they do not have a licence. They too have been told to remove all their outside furniture by Monday.

General Manager Fiona Sparkes told The Chiswick Calendar she has run the pub for the past ten years and they have never had any complaints about the outside space.

They keep it “spick and span”, clearing away glasses and sweeping up cigarette butts every night and there is more than the required one and a half metres of space for people in wheelchairs or with buggies to get past.

Licensing is dealt with by Fuller’s head office, she said. The Bell & Crown had a visit from a Hounslow officer on Tuesday, telling them they had to remove the tables and chairs.

They put in a licensing application the same day and were told the minimum time a ‘fast track’ application would take would be 14 days. None the less they were given just four days to remove their furniture from outside the pub, under threat of daily fines.

They have asked for a grace period while the licence application is considered, but The Chiswick Calendar understands the Council director responsible for licensing has said once the Council discovers there has been a licence breach, they have to act on it straight away.

“They will fast track the Bell & Crown’s application as quickly as they can”, Riverside councillor Amy Croft told us. As Cabinet Member for Infrastructure, licensing falls under her remit, but she said once Rick had set the ball rolling there is nothing she can do but let the application process take its course.

Bell & Crown general manager Fiona Sparkes demonstrating the amount of space between their tables and the chairs along the wall

Two weeks without outside seating will cost the pub thousands of pounds

The licensing crackdown could not come at a worse time for the Bell & Crown, as in the hot weather everyone wants to sit outside. Even removing the outside furniture for two weeks will cost them a lot of money.

Their usp is that they are a riverside pub with great views of the river. They have four outside tables which each seat six people.

The pub turnover doubles in the summer, precisely because it is in a lovely position for people to sit outside and enjoy the view.

Even for two weeks, the most optimistic estimate of how long the licensing process will take, they stand to lose thousands of pounds in food and drink takings and Fiona says would will not be able to offer two staff members shifts for that period.

She now has to decide whether it is better to keep the tables in place and pay the fines while the licence is processed, or to remove them and lose the customers, knowing some of them may not come back.

READ ALSO: Picturesque Strand on the Green