Council refuse application to renew Honeypot lap dancing club's licence

A lap dancing club in Maidenhead town centre has seen its application to renew its sexual entertainment venue licence refused by the council.

The Honeypot Gentleman’s Club, in Queen Street, has to seek permission from the local authority on a yearly basis to keep operating its late-night venue.

This year, the long-standing venue’s application faced opposition from the developers of the One Maidenhead scheme being built opposite.

Both the sexual entertainment venue and objectors were required to make representations at a licensing and public space protection order sub-committee meeting on Friday, May 17.

In a written objection, Tim Barlow from Hub Residential said: “Given this new neighbourhood has arrived and will assist the regeneration of the town centre, we think it is no longer appropriate to have a premises offering the sort of adult entertainment that the Honeypot offers.”

The developers described the new development as ‘a catalyst for positive change’, with 429 rental apartments attracting more than 1,250 new residents, including young families when occupied.

Referring to the next two phases of the development, Mr Barlow added: “The Honeypot is likely to put off these new [well-known] businesses that bring valuable economic input to the town and again, for this reason, we believe it is no longer appropriate to renew the application.”

At last Friday’s meeting, Honeypot owner John Sennett highlighted there hadn’t been any objections upheld in the 25-year history of the premises.

Mr Sennett told councillors he wasn’t concerned by the growing ‘residential nature’ of the area.

He added: “More people coming to Maidenhead, the better for business, the better for Maidenhead.

“There’s going to be bars and restaurants underneath the flats…and we’re going to be in competition with them, which is fair enough.”

A decision published by Windsor and Maidenhead council today (Friday) confirmed the council’s licensing and public space protection order sub-committee has unanimously refused the lap dancing club’s application to renew its licence.

The sub-committee said the area nearby the late-night venue had ‘changed a lot’ over the years and this brought the appropriateness of the lap dancing club into question.

“They (the panel) agreed that they did not believe that it was now appropriate to have a sexual entertainment venue in this area,” the decision notice said.

“The reasoning for this being that it was felt that the character of the area where the premises was located was in the process of changing via a huge transformation programme within Maidenhead, which had already seen an increase in residential developments within the vicinity of the Sexual Entertainment Venue.”