Owners of an Aberystwyth town-centre bar want to extend its opening hours to be able to serve alcohol and play music until 2am.

Bar 46, which opened on Bridge Street in the defunct RAFA club in 2016, is currently open until midnight every day of the week – a curtailed licence due to residents’ concerns when it first opened.

But now they say they want to stop late-night customers going elsewhere and have moved to assuage residents’ concerns over noise.

When it first opened, the bar had applied for a licence for a late-night bar open until 2am or 3am and now the owners have revisited that plan, applying to be able to sell alcohol and play music until 2am every day.

Gill Sherratt, who is handling the licence application for the bar, said that, “the disparity in the hours of trade throughout the town has been a continuous source of difficulty”.

“At the end of the evening, customers have to leave due to the restrictive hours when they would prefer to continue their evening in the bar,” she said.

“In order for any venue like this to survive there has to be parity with other like businesses.”

Local councillor Ceredig Davies said that he and residents were aware of the application.

“Historically there were issues with late noise emanating from the rear of what was the RAFA club at 46 Bridge Street,” he said.

“That noise impacted considerably on nearby residents and, as a consequence, when a licence was granted to Bar 46, conditions were placed on the new licence which included restricted access and noise levels at the rear of the property.”

Bar 46 said it has gone “to significant lengths to mitigate noise” since opening, including investing £35,000 on soundproofing of the whole building.

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