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Camden News - by CHARLOTTE CHAMBERS
Published: 9 April 2009

The Angel Inn

Songs of the Angel could be silenced

Fashionable pub faces opposition from residents’ group as it bids to hold live music nights

ONE of Highgate Village’s most fashionable pubs will learn on Thursday if its bid to become an acoustic music venue has been successful.
Camden Council’s licensing chiefs will assess an application to host live bands from the Angel Inn in Highgate High Street amid protests from nearby
residents who fear the evenings will be too noisy.
The pub stays open until half past midnight each evening except Sundays, and has applied for the right to host musical acts on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 10am until 11pm.
Despite management insisting the pub will only use the licence to stage “live unplugged acoustic music” once a month, some neighbours say performances are already taking place inside and claim they are amplified with speakers.
Neil Perkins, of the Pond Square Residents’ Association, said: “It is unclear what ‘live unplugged acoustic music’ actually means in practice, since most of the music currently being performed is amplified to an already unacceptable noise
level.”
Neighbour Steven Dykes, of Angel Yard, has also filed a letter of objection, insisting “Angel Inn is a local public house, not a live entertainment venue”. Residents Philip and Elizabeth Venning, of Highgate High Street, warned that “unless sound levels are strictly controlled” the move would create an “unacceptable” level of noise for locals.
But Angel Inn manager Kiara Lavery said she had created the monthly event in response to Highgate’s thriving young atmosphere – and insisted she does not plan to hold them more often.
Ms Lavery added: “We’re the only pub to have done live music for years and years.
“Highgate is a cultural spot, it seems a natural place to have live music.”
She said she had sent letters to the neighbours and the only one to reply – residents at the property next-door to the pub – told her he couldn’t hear a thing.
Ms Lavery insisted that according to their own soundchecks, no noise emanated from the building when the windows and doors are closed.

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