An airfield cafe has been granted an alcohol licence so that it can serve drinks to people staying at its campsite and attending social events. 

Andrew Whitaker had applied for the licence for the control tower cafe at Perranporth Airfield, St Agnes.

The licence was granted by Cornwall Council’s licensing act sub-committee despite objections from some local residents who were concerned about noise and disturbance from the site.

However, some of those concerns related to fears that the licence would allow the venue to host music events or even a festival. The applicants said that they had no intention to do so.

Mr Whitaker, operator of the cafe, told the committee: “We have applied for an alcohol licence for the small cafe that we have on site. We have a small caravan and campsite that we have run for around two years.

“We are looking to serve a pint of beer with a burger or some food for our campers or anyone visiting us when using our facilities on the site. It is to complement the food we serve already.”

The committee heard that people staying at the campsite often drive away to eat out or have a drink and said that by having a small bar it would reduce traffic movements from the site. 

Mr Whitaker said that it would only be a small bar with three pumps and described it as a “micro-bar”.

Catherine Mitchell, one of the objectors, said she was concerned about noise disturbance and impact on public safety. She claimed that the licence could allow a music festival for up to 500 people to be held on the site and said a recent licence application which was refused for a music festival to be held elsewhere on the airfield site had raised concerns.

She then claimed: “It looks like the aim is to use the control tower as a pub-slash-nightclub and use it for a small festival.”

Mr Whitaker said that what he wanted to do was far removed from what had been claimed and said he would be happy to have conditions placed on the licence to avoid such events from occurring.

He said: “This is a lot out of context, we have nothing to do with the application for the so-called festival. It had nothing to do with me whatsoever, it just happened to clash with this application.”

Mr Whitaker added: “I have no intention to hold festivals, I am happy to have a restriction put in place for festivals or masses of people. It really isn’t what I am looking to do. All I am trying to do is serve a small bit of alcohol with food served by the cafe. I have no intention of organising festivals, no intention to play loud music until the early hours of the morning.”

The committee unanimously agreed to grant the licence saying that they considered the representations but that there was no evidence to back up the claims being made. The licence will allow the cafe to serve alcohol from 10am to 11.30pm and open from 8am to midnight. At Christmas and New Year the licence will allow alcohol to be served until 1am and for the cafe to remain open until 1.30am.