�Brentwood’s Sugar Hut nightclub has won permission to extend its opening hours so clubbers can party for longer.

The celebrity nightspot, regularly featured on TV show The Only Way Is Essex, will now be open for an extra hour, until 3am from Thursday to Saturday.

The owner, Mick Norcross, wanted to also extend the opening hours until 1.30am on Sunday but this was refused by Brentwood Council’s licensing sub-committee because it is the start of the working week.

David Carter, senior environmental officer, said in a report to the council: “The concerns related to this application are the increase in opening hours into the early hours of the morning, which in our opinion would be likely to result in complaints with regard to amplified music from the premises and from the activity of customers in the courtyard area.”

Russell Powell, licensing officer for the council, said there were no objections from Essex Police but the environmental health pollution team objected on the grounds it would be “likely to get complaints about amplified music and noise from the courtyard”.

Laughing

Cllr Phillip Mynott, who lives in Western Road, about 200 yards from the club, said: “On December 29 when I personally heard, not only walking past and back to my property in Western Road, a very high level of noise coming from Sugar Hut…I have no wish to hear any Sugar Hut noise.”

He added he could hear music from his house on April 22 and 29 after midnight.

Cllr Madeline Henwood, who was sitting on the committee, said she was also concerned about noise from the courtyard.

Resident Sue Hoare, who lives in flats in Bishopsgate, said: “We can often hear shrieking, screeching, laughing, just generally people socialising.

“We can hear very clearly noise and conversation from the courtyard of Sugar Hut and noise from within. It can be heard above our television.”

David Dadds, a solicitor representing Sugar Hut, had asked that representations from the council’s environmental health department not be included in the proceedings as they were submitted after a 28-day consultation date.