A rural wedding venue near Yelverton has been allowed to extend the hours in which it can sell alcohol and play recorded music outside weekends, despite objections from neighbours, writes Alison Stephenson.

West Devon Borough Council’s licensing sub committee has approved a new premises licence at Uphill Farm Walled Garden and Barn.

The farm has been running events under temporary licences for three years, but was officially granted planning permission as a venue for weddings and courses last December.

Applicants Christopher and Charlotte Hayes wanted to supply alcohol until 11.30pm on Friday and Saturday nights and play music until midnight indoors and outdoors on the same evenings.

Environmental health officers were initially against granting a licence because of concerns about noise, but later withdrew their objections as long as no more than 120 people attend events and lighting and noise management plans are complied with.

Objector Nigel Passmore, who lives 250 metres away, said extending the licensing period by an hour to midnight would affect residents as it was likely that vehicles, including minibuses and taxis, would be heard leaving and going over a cattle grid next to his property as late as 12.45am.

Mr Passmore had previously submitted a video to environmental health officers from one event where lyrics of the song could be heard from his property.

He said the borough council did not have the resources to sit outside properties and record noise so residents themselves would have to become “the music police”.

He said he would have to pay for CCTV and noise monitoring equipment.

The applicants said they wanted to extend the time the venue operated because of the demand from evening wedding parties.

Their planning permission allowed only ten events to be held until midnight and a further ten until 10pm, plus 20 small events and 15 training courses.

Christopher Hayes said Mr Passmore’s video was recorded before a sophisticated zone array system introduced to control noise.

He said they had also put in place a complaints system so neighbours had immediate contact with them and that music could be turned down remotely.

He said they had never broken noise regulations and that before planning permission was granted, they could only operate for 28 days a year and they had been unable to invest in the equipment that they now possessed.