Residents blighted by a cannabis café on their doorstep are celebrating after it was permanently shut down.

A judge has ordered the building, in Freshbrook Road, Lancing, to be closed to everyone until November.

Solicitors acting for the people running the café appealed against an earlier three-month closure notice under the Antisocial Behaviour Act.

Instead of overturning the original decision, the judge hearing the appeal extended the closure order for another three months.

Between the original closure order and the appeal, a private eviction order brought to court by a mortgage company was granted meaning the building is finally rid of those associated with running it as a cannabis café.

Chief Inspector James Asser, divisional commander for Adur, said: “We met with residents to tell them it had finally closed for good.

“The pictures speak a thousand words. Getting people to public meetings is quite difficult sometimes but we had quite a number there.

“The cannabis café has been a blight on their life for two years now so they were ecstatic.”

The café, which was labelled by Ch Insp Asser as the most fortified in Britain, has been the target of numerous raids with officers once using a tractor to pull the side of the building down to get in.