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Save Lord Napier Star

The Lord Napier in Hackney needs your voice!

A new development planned next door would put balconies and bedroom windows directly over the pub's garden and roof terrace, and the applicant's noise assessment doesn't even measure the garden, where the pub trades until 01:30!

Recipients

Nick Graves - Development Manager / Tower Hamlets

Subject

Objection: PA/26/00990/A1, 27 White Post Lane, London E9 5EN

Message

Dear Mr Graves,

1. Introduction
1.1 I wish to object the above planning application, which directly adjoins the Lord Napier Pub. I ask that this objection be taken into account before a decision is made.

1.2 The pub reopened in 2021 following refurbishment under permission LL/17/00503/FUL. It trades under premises licence 180073 with the following outdoor and music arrangements:

- Rear garden, between the pub and the railway and directly alongside the application site: licensed until 01:30 for drinking and as the pub’s smoking area.
- Roof terrace: operates until 22:30
- Internal music: DJs and recorded music on the ground and first floors until 01:30 at the weekend.

1.3 These activities are central to how the business trades and survives. I object to the application because it places new homes, balconies and a roof terrace immediately beside all three without demonstrating that the conflict can be avoided.

2. Agent of Change
2.1 London Plan Policy D13, NPPF (August 2026) Policy P4 and LLDC Local Plan Policy BN.12 place the responsibility for mitigating noise from an existing venue on the new development. Existing businesses should not face unreasonable restrictions because of development approved after them.

2.2 D13 goes further. New homes must be designed so that established venues can continue and grow. Boroughs should not normally permit schemes that have not clearly shown how noise will be mitigated and managed. 
This application does not show that.

3. The applicant’s Noise Assessment does not assess the pub as it actually operates
3.1 The garden is not assessed at all. The assessment (Hawkins Environmental, 9 July 2026) considers only the roof terrace and internal music. It makes no mention of the rear garden, which is licensed until 01:30 and is where our customers drink and smoke late at night.

That is the most intensive late-night activity at the premises. It is also the one the rear balconies overlook. Raised voices and laughter in the garden after midnight are exactly the kind of noise that disturbs sleep and leads to complaints. None of it has been measured or modelled.

3.2 No survey of the pub was carried out. Noise was measured on a Monday and Tuesday (29–30 June 2026) from the roof of the existing building. The report treats rail as the main noise source. Nothing was measured during our busiest trading, such as a Friday or Saturday night up to 03:00.

3.3 The pub figures are borrowed from 2017. The assessment relies on the acoustic report prepared for our refurbishment. That report looked at the effect of the pub on flats across the road at Stonemasons House, not on homes built directly against our wall and garden.

3.4 Its own figures show harm at night. The assessment predicts roof terrace noise of about 58 dB at the proposed second-floor windows, only 4m away, and music noise of about 53 dB at the front of the building. Its own night-time background level is 42 dB. Music continues until 01:30 at the weekend, so for a few hours of the night it would be around 11 dB above background, right through the period when residents are trying to sleep. Garden noise until 01:30 would be additional to this and has not been estimated at all.

4. Mitigation relies on residents keeping windows shut
4.1 The assessment’s answer is mechanical ventilation. It states that “it does not matter that noise from the pub could be audible externally”. Yet the same report says the windows must remain openable. In practice residents will open them, especially on warm summer nights when the garden is busiest. This is exactly how complaints start.

4.2 The report also accepts that the site is at high risk of overheating and that windows cannot be relied on for cooling. The modelling that would show the flats stay comfortable with windows closed has not been provided.

4.3 Sound transmission through the shared wall, including bass from music, is simply “assumed” to be dealt with at a later design stage. For a building joined to a music venue, this must be demonstrated before permission is granted.

5. Balconies and terrace overlooking the pub
5.1 Our garden is at the rear, between the pub and the railway. The site plan shows the scheme’s rear balconies on the first to third floors directly alongside it, looking straight down onto where our customers drink and smoke until 01:30. The top-floor roof terrace also sits beside our own roof terrace.

5.2 These private outdoor spaces cannot be protected from noise at all. They are already above recommended noise limits from the railway alone, before any pub noise is counted. The assessment does not consider pub noise on them.

5.3 They would also reduce our customers’ privacy. They create obvious risks of conflict, including residents watching the garden, complaints about smoking, and objects dropped from height.

6. Threat to the business
6.1 Once occupied, any resident complaint could lead to a review of our licence under the Licensing Act 2003, or a statutory nuisance investigation. A grant of planning permission for the flats would not protect the pub from either.

6.2 The garden’s 01:30 hours are the most exposed. Any future proposal to change or extend our operation would also be made far harder. This is precisely what the Agent of Change principle exists to prevent.

6.3 The pub is identified by the Council as a non-designated heritage asset. It is a long-standing part of Hackney Wick’s night-time economy, which LLDC Local Plan Policy B.2 and the Evening and Night-time Economy SPD aim to protect. London Plan Policies HC6 and HC7 also support pubs and the night-time economy.

7. Requested outcome
7.1 I ask that the application be refused as contrary to:

- London Plan Policies D13, D14, D6, HC6 and HC7;
- NPPF Policies P3 and P4; and
- LLDC Local Plan Policies BN.12, B.1 and B.2.

7.2 At the very least, it should not be determined until the applicant provides:

- a noise survey of the garden, roof terrace and internal music during peak weekend trading up to 01:30;
- a specified construction for the shared wall;
- an assessment of pub noise at the balconies and roof terrace; and the overheating modelling.

I also ask that the Council’s Environmental Health and Licensing teams are consulted.

7.3 If the Council is nonetheless minded to approve, the scheme should be amended and conditioned so that:

- there are no balconies or openable bedroom windows facing the garden or roof terrace, or those balconies are fully enclosed as acoustically rated winter gardens;
- noise testing takes place before occupation, including during late-night trading;
- all buyers and tenants are formally told about the pub’s licensed hours through a Section 106 agreement or deed of easement; and
- a Construction Management Plan protects the pub’s access and trading during the works.

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