A Richmond chicken shop fighting to stay open late for a second time is facing backlash from locals who claim they are already woken up by late night revellers in the town centre.

Jojo's Peri Peri in Richmond saw its previous application to open until 2am refused in May 2021.

The restaurant on Kew Road has applied to extend its closing hour from 11pm to 11.45pm on most days except Fridays and Saturdays, when it hopes to close at 1am. It would still sell booze until 11pm. But the Friends of Richmond Green and Richmond Society have expressed fears the shop would have "no control" over late-night customers buying food from it, moving elsewhere and being noisy.

Solicitor Matthew Phipps told Richmond Council's licensing sub-committee on Tuesday night (August 16) the application is "much more modest" than the refused plans. He said: "Representations were not submitted by the police nor any of the other responsible authorities. Police proposed a series of conditions – these have all been agreed." 

This includes having at least two staff on duty after 11pm. Mr Phipps said there are no issues with customers' behaviour at the shop, but that it could put in place a door supervisor registered by the Security Industry Authority if the committee thought it necessary.

Mr Phipps said the shop's delivery drivers park in designated areas and do not disturb anyone. He said staff "regularly check" for litter and do litter picks, adding: "Bearing in mind a significant proportion of our business is delivery, almost exclusively to residential property, we've not experienced any real litter issues or problems at our venue." He later added: "There isn't a scintilla of evidence in a negative form about this operation, its customers, its management or anything in the entire time that it's been trading." 

But Peter Willan, representing the Friends of Richmond Green and the Richmond Society, said locals "suffer today significantly from people out on that Green way into the early hours of the morning, on many nights at 3am and so on, waking people up". He said they are "fearful that we are going to get back to a very high hotspot in this area". 

A letter to the council from the Friends of Richmond Green adds the group is "not saying this is caused by the applicant" but that it "has no control over where customers go and over their behaviour".

Mr Willan told the meeting: "An extension of hours, particularly past midnight, is really a serious issue for us. We are a unique town in many ways… we have in Richmond very close proximity of residents, bars, pubs and open spaces and that creates quite an opportunity for low-level antisocial behaviour."

He said: "We really do want successful businesses. But we don't want late hours past midnight and the town is trying to get to sleep then and I think that's where we have a problem here. I'm not for one minute suggesting this is not a well-run business and I would love them to be very successful."

Richmond Council's licensing sub-committee will make a decision in the coming days.