There are a lot of problems like this around at the moment.
I go to meetings of a group called Music Venues Alliance (one in London last week) and it's a recurrent topic there. The problems mostly come - as in this case - from redevelopments bringing new inhabitants to an area. We've had redevelopments in Walcot Street and who is to say it won't happen again?
In the works there is a national planning principle called 'Agent of Change' which stipulates basically that it is the people causing change who are responsible for mitigating it: ie. in this case, if a developer converts new premises then it's up to them to ensure they are soundproofed against things that already and habitually happen there. I don't however think that it's actually on the books yet but we are assured it's happening.
I remember new people moving in next door to the Hat & Feather complaining it was noisy - what did they expect, moving into what was at that point probably the busiest (and wildest) music pub in the city? They should have paid some attention to where they were putting themselves.
Agent of Change should consign those kind of complaints to history - but people wanting their own way do often look for another way of doing it, so I don't expect the attitude is entirely dead...
I'm a member of the Board and a Founder Member of the CoOp. I'm also an admin of this site!
I have worked for the pub in a freelance capacity, and at the Hat & Feather too, since the early 1990s.
I also work freelance for Bath Fringe and for some other festivals. I'm a musician and a writer.
