A Helston bar owner at the centre of a licence review due to noise complaints says he is "not going to take this lying down."

Neal Hicks, landlord of The Beehive in Coinagehall Street, told the Packet he was not in a battle with neighbours and was doing everything he could to reduce noise levels, but would fight his corner.

It is after Cornwall Council "repeatedly" received complaints over the levels of noise sometimes going beyond 3am, with one person describing it as like "from a horror film."

Graham Bailey, senior officer of licence compliance at the council, asked for a licence review that was backed by environmental officers.

Outlining his reasons in documents that will go before the licensing committee next Wednesday, Mr Bailey said: “The noise is produced from two sources: the constant drum and bass musical activities - which a complainant has described as a loud heartbeat from a horror film - combined with human voices, often very loud, screaming, shouting and swearing as they gather on the wooden decking close to their property."

He said there had been “numerous” informal and formal interventions from the council’s environmental health and licensing teams over “at least 12 months”.

But he added: “The premises licence holder/designated premises supervisor has not fully engaged with the council and continues to breach his premises licence conditions almost on a weekly basis despite advice from the council.”

He claimed that Mr Hicks “continually fails to take appropriate action to tackle the issue" and said the council’s environmental health team had served a noise nuisance notice on Mr Hicks.

Documents that will go to the committee next week include 112 pages of complaints and emails which have been logged by the council since December 2016.

One complainant writes in an email that they were "dreading the weekend" after being “forced to listen to arguing, shouting and drunken singing time and time again."

Another describes noise from the pub as “intolerable” and says “it is affecting sleep and our general demeanour to such a degree that we feel that we can no longer cope with its intrusion”.

Several of the complaints submitted to the council include pleas for help including one which states: “The noise from people leaving The Beehive pub in Helston is awful and getting worse, it is going on until 4am some days, glass is smashed on the pavement, vomit and urine everywhere and this morning blood trail leading from the pub. Please help.”

However, Mr Hicks told the Packet: "We are actively and continually attempting to reduce noise levels.

"We want to be as friendly as we can with the neighbours."

He said staff had hand-delivered letters to 24 neighbouring properties saying for them to get in touch if they had issues, but no one had responded.

They had put up 5ft high barriers on the decking area, in a bid to deflect noise, and closed off about 60 per cent of it, turning over chairs to discourage people congregating there.

Mr Hick said: "We're trying all we can to appease them and reduce noise to the minimum.

"We don't want to upset anyone, but we're not going to take this lying down."

And he pointed out: "Their choice was to live next to a late night bar. If I didn't like planes I wouldn't live next to an airport."