Southsea cafe seeks alcohol licence to boost business after Covid

The husband and wife team behind Delaneys in Castle Road, Southsea, are looking to sell alcohol alongside evening meals on Fridays and Saturdays, as well as providing their usual cafe fare in the week.

It comes after the sandwich bar lost business ‘overnight’ last year when the road was closed to traffic to allow for social distancing.

One of the owners, Belinda Delaney, said: ‘We lost a lot of our business overnight because people liked the convenience of just parking up along the road and picking something up.

‘We were in a situation where we thought “we have got to do something”. So before tier four was announced we had three weeks where we ran supper evenings on Fridays and Saturdays using temporary event notices. It meant we had something else to offer people.

‘It worked really well, people could have a glass of wine or a beer with a meal.’

The site has also recently undergone a ‘huge’ refurbishment while closed for lockdown.

However, residents living above the venue have raised objections to the council over noise concerns.

Janet and Anthony May said: ‘Please have some respect and consideration for us, this is our home and we have suffered all this because we like living here and have tolerated the noise because of that but this will force us out of our home of 14 years.

‘I will not let this rest, this will cause us severe distress and we will not be able to continue living here under these conditions which will most certainly beconsiderably worse than they are now.’

But Belinda, who runs the venue with her husband Philip Melville, said they were ‘not looking to be a big, rowdy bar’.

The 46-year-old added: ‘I think some residents had concerns about the licence hours, which are standard. But most days we will close at 3pm as usual.

‘It will be disappointing if we can't get this, it will be a shame.’

A decision on the licence will be made by Portsmouth City Council's licensing committee at a virtual meeting next week.

A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron

You can subscribe here for unlimited access to Portsmouth news online - as well as fewer adverts, access to our digital edition and mobile app.

Our trial offer starts at just £2 a month for the first two months.