Businessman Raham Fard is set to turn the pizza takeaway at the Rectory Row precinct in Easthampstead into a Mediterranean eatery called Feta & Fig.
To allow for operational flexibility, Mr Fard applied to open at 6am and close at 2am on Fridays and Saturdays, and midnight the rest of the week.
However, this licensing application faced objections from neighbours living in flats above the precinct.
Because of the objections, a panel of three councillors had to decide the application at a Bracknell Forest Council meeting.
Tensa Campbell, a resident, said: “My intent is not to request for the application to be refused. My concern is around the hours itself, predominantly midnight to 2am. By no means am I saying please refuse it.
“I’m saying please can you look at those hours, that really, really significantly concerns me.
“I am a parent of a child with autism. I can say, with hypersensitivity, sleep comes rarely. I also have a neighbour whose boys are autistic by diagnosis, it is something that just wanted to put out there to say to keep in consideration, just from a mental health perspective.”
Dale Riley, a fellow neighbour, said: “We have nowhere in that house to hide from deliveries.
“The delivery staff by truck at the back are not considering who’s upstairs when the door slam and the crates rock across the floor.
“I swear I’ve called um someone and report it. You can hear the crates at arund 3-4am in the morning, with the crates being slammed on the ground the skated across the floor.
“Summer is horrid because of it.”
Ms Campbell added: “The weekend is the only time that I’m not getting up to go to work.
“I do work at home on the weekend because my job demands it.
“While we are the couple in front of you, it is a shared concern from the other residents.”
Mr Fard argued that he would rarely require the late operating hours, with the application being designed for flexibility.
He said: “It was done based on my experience because I was running Pizza Go Go down the High Street for 20 years and then we had a license until 1am, but we realised that anything after 9pm we don’t get any kind of business going on, or if we did 99 per cent of that is just delivery based.
“The whole reason why I applied for it was for operational flexibility other than anything else.”
Ultimately, the panel rejected the application at the meeting on Monday, September 15.
This means the latest that Feta & Fig close is at 11pm.
However, the decision states: “This rejection does not preclude the Applicant’s ability to reapply once they have a better understanding of the business demand and if the concerns raised are sufficiently addressed by measures within the control of the applicant.”
Mr Fard also has the right to appeal.
The decision was made by councillors Nick Allen (Conservatives, Owlsmoor & College Town), Janet Cochrane (Labour, Hanworth) and Cherise Welch (Labour, Harmans Water & Crown Wood),
Dining and Cooking