A popular Watford music bar has been granted permission to extend its weekend opening hours - despite residents' concerns the move is a "public nuisance".

The Flamingo in The Parade will now serve alcohol to 1.30am, which is a half an hour extension on the venue’s current licence.

The bar will also close half an hour later at 2am to give punters 30 minutes drinking up time.

Licence-holder of the venue Denis Cook originally applied to extend the sale of alcohol licence to 2am.

Peter Young, of the Central Town Residents’ Association & Neighbourhood Watch, lodged an objection saying residents had trouble with late night clientele on the surrounding residential roads.

He said: "Although this venue is sold primarily as a music forum, it does provide alcohol and the application is to open to the early morning.

"We consider that a small extension to, say opening to 2am might be acceptable, opening further will reduce the residents’ quality of life by increasing the early morning disturbance as clientele leave the district."

Nearby resident Terry White also objected to the change of licence.

Mr White said: "I am a resident of long standing - 30 years - at my present address and believe that my assumptions about the public nuisance and noise, which if granted in this application, would disturb my sleep until a much later time."

He asked the doors by kept closed for added soundproofing.

A third objection by another bar on The Parade said the extension should not be granted on the grounds of public nuisance, crime and disorder and public safety.

The application went before Watford Borough Council’s licensing sub-committee on Monday, April 28.

Chairman George Derbyshire said: "We agreed to extend the hours for the sale of alcohol by half an hour to 1.30am on Fridays and Saturdays.

"There was an objection from the chairman of the local residents’ association, but he indicated he didn’t think he’d have an objection to the hours being extended by 30 minutes.

"We have extended the opening hours of the premise to 2am, to allow half and hour for drinking up time."

Denis Cook said: "We applied to extend our licence to sell alcohol to 2am. We thought that was a reasonable request to make.

"We were granted an extension until 1.30am and we will have to work with that.

"We have accepted the council’s decision.

"Most of the objections were historic. We have been open for ten months now and we’ve not had any complaints from anybody."