A London music venue that has hosted the likes of Rick Astley and Lady Gaga says it will be threatened with closure if two blocks of flats are built next door.
Moth Club, a former members club for ex-servicemen in Hackney, says plans to build 12 flats on Morning Lane overlooking the club and its smoking area will almost certainly be its undoing if the applications are approved.
Applicants Braycote Ltd and Emel Kara have each filed plans separately for what appears to be a joint project to build identical looking flats on the sites at 2 and 4-6 Morning Lane.
Noise assessments suggest the flats would be exposed to ‘high’ levels of noise and would need air conditioning to control the temperature inside, because opening the windows would let in too much sound.
But the plans also include open air balconies that will overlook the venue, which opens until 3am on Friday and Saturday nights – prompting fears that those who move into the development will inevitably file noise complaints.
Edie Kench-Andrews, general manager of the club, said the bid to build beside the nightclub would put Moth at ‘serious risk’ of closure and have a devastating effect on Hackney’s nightlife.
Moth, described as ‘legendary’ by NME, is hugely popular, even appearing in its own UKTV series, Live at the Moth Club.
It continues to be used by the Memorable Order of Tin Hats, the club of ex-servicemen and women from which the venue takes its name, for meetings.
Moth Club, based inside an ex-servicemen’s club in Hackney, says it could face closure if a block of flats is built overlooking its smoking area
The proposed development as it would sit in front of the venue (pictured to the right, with a poppy on the front)
The site as it is now – with a low-rise series of shops and no residential dwellings on the corner
Ms Kench-Andrews told the BBC that Moth Club needs to be ‘able to make noise’ to ‘make money’ – but that this could be curtailed if residents move into the new flats and immediately lodge complaints about the bassy music and noise from smokers.
‘Without being able to make noise, we can’t make money. And without being able to make noise, we can’t stay open,’ she said.
‘A building like that getting built next to us will cast such a shadow over everything that we have worked for,’ she said.
‘If we were to get shut down, it would be a monumental difference for the community.’
Moth Club opened in 1972 as a veterans’ group but 10 years ago teamed up with creative agency LNZRT to transform it into a live entertainment venue.
Since then it has hosted the likes of Idles, Jarvis Cocker and even rock legends Suede, who played a secret gig under a fake name there in 2022.
Banners outside the venue encourage people to leave quietly, reading: ‘If you make noise outside, Moth Club won’t be able to make noise inside any longer… please respect our neighbours.’
A petition opposing the development has collected 10,000 signatures in a week.
‘If these developments are approved, the noise, disruption, and potential complaints from future residents could jeopardise the venue’s future, dealing yet another blow to London’s dwindling independent venue scene,’ it reads.
The Morning Lane plans share the same planning agents, Savills, and architect, Stephen Peter Davy Smith Architects (SPDSA).
Mockups on the architecture firm’s website suggest the project is a uniform endeavour, despite the plans being split into two.
Moth Club has status among performers: Suede performed a secret show at the venue in 2022 under the name Crushed Kid
It also had its own UKTV show, Live at Moth Club, featuring comedians such as Olga Koch (above)
Renders show the building as a uniform block – despite being submitted as two separate planning applications
Moth Club has accused developers of splitting the application in two to avoid a need to provide social housing
Moth Club says it respects its neighbours and urges partygoers to leave quietly when the night is over
Moth Club claims this is a deliberate move to avoid having to include social housing under Hackney Council planning rules, which would require any project with more than 10 dwellings to make half of them affordable.
Combined, the two applications have 12 dwellings. Documents included with the planning application say that an alternative of paying £50,000 per flat to Hackney Council’s affordable housing fund would be ‘non-viable’.
Savills and SPDSA were contacted for comment.
There is some small hope that Moth Club will have planning policy on its side.
Under changes to national planning rules brought about through lobbying by groups such as UK Music, applicants looking to build homes near existing live venues must make an effort to soundproof the dwellings – a rule known as the ‘agent of change’ clause.
A noise assessment carried out for 2 Morning Lane was carried out on a Tuesday and a Wednesday night in April suggested there was ‘no music or patron noise’ late at night.
But Moth Club does not open late during the week and opens until 3am on Friday and Saturday nights.
Hawkins Environmental, which carried out the noise assessments, has been contacted for comment.
Live music venues and pubs are under threat from residents who move into lively areas before lodging noise complaints.
Following the pandemic, noise complaints in the capital surged after people who had adjusted to the ‘Covid quiet’ took issue with people going on nights out.
The Music Venue Trust says 35 per cent of Britain’s small music venues have closed in the last 20 years – at a rate of two every week last year – after being squeezed by rising bills and the threat of shutdown from grumpy locals.
Earlier this year, Manchester venue Night and Day Cafe won a legal battle after it was slapped with a noise abatement notice following complaints from neighbours.
However, it has been told it must reduce its sound levels if it wants to stay open.
And earlier this month Marylebone pub The Globe was told it may have to shut early by council killjoys – after a resident complained about ‘laughter’ from the central London watering hole minutes after midnight.
It came after Notting Hill pub The Pelican, patronised by the likes of Dua Lipa and Princess Eugenie, was slapped with noise rules following complaints from neighbours – despite the venue having been a pub of some description for hundreds of years.
The issue is not limited to London. Seaside pub The Lord Raglan in Emsworth, Hampshire, has been banned from staging live music in its beer garden after residents in £1.5m mansions next door said it was ‘too loud’.
Pub owners Victor and Naomi Tewkesbury say the noise ban will leave them £60,000 out of pocket each year from lost revenue.
In 2014, Brighton venue The Blind Tiger Club was closed after a tenant moved in upstairs before lodging several complaints with the council and the police.
London boroughs have some of the highest rates of noise complaints being filed out of any councils in the country.
Research by Churchill Home Insurance in the summer found council revenue from fines given out to those breaching noise orders rose 59 per cent in the first three months of this year.