Bid to reopen trouble-hit Wolverhampton pub The Harp Inn

The Harp Inn, in Walsall Street, Eastfield, closed after a knife attack in 2014 and then reopened in 2016 as the Mississauga Club. But following repeated incidents of violence it shut again.

A proposal to reopen the venue will go before Wolverhampton Council’s licensing sub-committee this week.

Residents have been opposed to it reopening amid claims of fighting, loud music, cars racing up and down the street and general noise nuisance from the premises.

Speaking on behalf of people living near the pub, Wolverhampton councillor Anwen Muston said they had ‘suffered for years’, while West Midlands Police is also opposed to it reopening.

A force spokesman said: “The pub has attracted criminal activity and known gang members have frequented it over a number of years. Class A drugs have also been used on the premises, traces of which were found on numerous surfaces inside the pub.

“In 2014 there was an attempt to murder a doorman, and in 2015 another incident occurred where doorman Isaac Green was assaulted with a machete after he had assaulted other people with a baseball bat in a large violent disorder.

“If this application is granted by the committee, West Midlands Police envisage further issues of drugs being dealt and criminal activity. This would seriously undermine all four of the licensing objectives.”

The council has also received a signed petition from residents living near the pub. In a statement they said: “We are quite frightened of the people the pub is attracting.”

A proposal to reopen the venue went before council bosses last month, but solicitor Heath Thomas, on behalf of the pub’s owners, requested an adjournment to prepare an amended application.

By Joe Sweeney, Local Democracy Reporter