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Boxpark Shoreditch faces fight to secure expanded outdoor drinking line-up

An application from Boxpark Shoreditch, the East London retail and leisure complex housed within shipping containers, to extend the number of late-night drinking establishments is facing a stern challenge from local residents who have dubbed the complex ‘boozepark’.

The venue has applied for a new licence to sell alcohol across an undisclosed number of bars on its first floor from noon til 11pm Monday to Saturday, and until 8.30pm on Sunday.

However, local residents, alongside the Metropolitan Police and local residents groups, have vehemently opposed the plans which they say will see the complex further slipping away from its original purpose as a high-end shopping and retail centre.

Devised by Boxfresh fashion tycoon Roger Wade, the centre opened in 2011 and was followed by a second Boxpark development in Croydon this year.

According to the Standard, a local group of business and residents dubbed The Jago Action Group claimed that the venue as becoming increasingly dominated by drinking venues, in contrast to its original planning application.

It said: “Boxpark — now often known locally as boozepark — originally received planning permission only on the basis of an explicit assurance there would be no licensed premises in the development. Yet it has increasingly become a complex of linked drinking venues.”

Roger Wade said that the application, which is set to go before Hackey’s licensing committee on Tuesday 6 June, had taken into account local views of both residents and the police.

He said: “Boxpark has also consulted extensively with police and local community groups.

“We have incorporated the majority of their comments in our new licence. Unfortunately a no-noise clause is not workable.”