ROCK star Roger Daltrey has been given permission to open a brewery taproom at his trout farm.

The application for the sale of alcohol at Lakedown Trout Fishery, The Who frontman’s angling business outside Burwash Common, came from his youngest son Jamie Daltrey, who now runs it.

He said they wanted to create “a vineyard style tasting room” at the fishery’s lodge to serve craft beer made by the Lakedown Brewing Company.

A legal representative for the fishery told a Rother District Council licensing panel the wider business would still be focused on fishing, with the taproom intended as a place for anglers to visit at the end of the day. 

To achieve this the fishery suggested a 6pm closing time between October and March and a 9pm closing time during spring and summer. The business also offered a condition limiting it to only selling alcohol, specifically beer, from the Lakedown Brewing Company and no other suppliers.

Concerns were raised by a number of neighbours over noise, light pollution and the impact on traffic. Some of these neighbours attended the hearing to call on the panel to impose additional conditions on the licence. 

Some of these conditions were accepted by the applicant.

The panel granted the licence without imposing conditions beyond those accepted by the business.

In a decision notice published this week, a spokesman for the panel said: “On balance, the panel accepted that the modest proposals within the application did not represent a shift in the nature and scale of the existing business.

“Having regard to the nature of the representations against the application, the panel was satisfied, on balance, that operating hours did not constitute a diversification of the angling business to the extent that neighbours would notice any change in traffic or noise from the licensable activity, particularly following the applicant’s amended hours on reading the representations.”

The additional conditions, which were accepted by the applicant, included limits on outside lighting and the creation of a social media group where neighbours could raise concerns related to licensing matters.