Plans to build a luxury restaurant and bar at a yacht club on the Sandbanks is facing backlash from angry neighbours. 

Wealthy locals have accused Spencer Whitworth, owner of Sandbanks Yacht Company, of trying to bring a ‘nightclub atmosphere’ to the millionaires’ playground.

The businessman has applied for a new alcohol licence that will include a storage area so it can be turned into a members’ lounge.

But residents on the ‘millionaires’ row’ in Poole, Dorset, where the average home sells for £1.2million, claim the application is an underhand attempt to double the size of the restaurant, which will wreak misery on those living nearby.

They say the quiet location is not appropriate for a ‘town centre’ bar and the restaurant was only ever meant to be a small cafe for boat owners.

This marks the latest attempt by Mr Whitworth’s yacht company to expand the restaurant.

Last year, residents hired a barrister to fight plans for a block of 15 flats and the large-scale restaurant and succeeded in getting a Judicial Review to quash the local council’s decision to grant the change of use.

There is a condition on a previous planning approval that the boatyard must be retained as the predominant commercial use on the site, and all other associated activities are ‘ancillary’ to it.

But locals say Mr Whitworth, a chartered surveyor and director of Sandbanks Yacht Company, has done everything to try to get round this.

Sandbanks Yacht Company (outlined) – owned by wealthy businessman Spencer Whitworth – has applied for a new alcohol licence that will include a storage area so it can be turned into a members’ lounge

Pictured: The area of the two floors the yacht company want covered by the new licence

Bill Soper, who lives opposite the yacht club, said residents have had ongoing problems with punters making noise in the street after closing and taxis idling and honking horns as they pick revellers up.

He claims the yacht club does nothing to disperse customers when they leave and there has been a lack of response from the council when locals have reported disturbances to them.

When they have taken matters into their own hands, they have been met with threats from the drunken punters, he claims.

Mr Soper also said residents were prevented from objecting to the new licence application because someone removed official public notices that would have alerted them to it.

He said: ‘A large full scale bar and restaurant would never have been allowed in this residential area, this was only approved as an ancillary boatyard cafe and restaurant, primarily for boating members.

‘Applications for a freestanding large restaurant in this location have been refused by the council in the past despite various initiatives by the applicant to try to circumvent the planning policies, often using false information.

‘They extended the opening hours under the radar post-Covid in 2021. When they did that they used an incorrect plan showing a members’ lounge that hasn’t existed for eight years, it’s a gym.’

Resident Natasha Lewis has also objected to the licence application, citing mental health concerns for those living nearby.

She said: ‘The premises are located in the heart of a residential area. The grant of this licence will cause unacceptable disruption to the lives of the people living close by.

‘The current arrangements already cause anxiety and sleep interruptions for nearby residents.’

Bill Soper (pictured), who lives opposite the yacht club, said residents have had ongoing problems with punters making noise in the street after closing and taxis idling and honking horns as they pick revellers up 

An aerial view of Sandbanks in Dorset. Homes on the exclusive peninsula regularly sell for over £1million 

Ms Lewis said the restaurant and bar would disrupt families and elderly residents and cause an ‘unacceptable nuisance’, adding she had already complained about ‘unbearable’ levels of noise.

Another resident, who asked to remain anonymous, said it was ‘totally unfair to impose a nightclub atmosphere on residents’.

The yacht club want permission to sell alcohol for consumption on and off the premises from 7am to 11pm every day.

Lawyer Philip Day, on behalf of the yacht company, said: ‘The existing premises licence, which was granted without objection many years ago, authorises longer hours than are actually used by the operator.

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‘The current application is for precisely the same hours and licensable activities as the existing licence.

‘If granted, this application will not be imposing a “night club atmosphere” on residents.

‘The allegations of nuisance in particular from music noise are neither supported by any evidence nor substantiated by the responsible authorities.’

The application will go before the licensing sub-committee on Wednesday.

It comes after Mr Whitworth faced furious backlash from the wealthy residents in November over an application to build a two-bedroom bungalow on one of the few open spaces left on the exclusive peninsula.

If approved, the property will back immediately onto the boundaries of two luxury detached homes.

Concerned locals warned that building over ‘every available square inch’ left on Sandbanks was turning the posh neighbourhood into a version of Benidorm or even Manhattan.

And they have accused Mr Whitworth, a chartered surveyor and director of Sandbanks Yacht Company, of ‘shoe-horning’ a home into the tiny triangular plot.

A digital rendering of what the bungalow will look like (circled). If approved, the property will back immediately onto the boundaries of two luxury detached homes

The empty plot of land (pictured) is one of the last open spaces left on the peninsula. Concerned residents have warned that building over ‘every available square inch’ left on Sandbanks was turning it into  Manhattan

Professor Norman Noah, an eminent epidemiologist whose property will be closest to the bungalow said: ‘The proposed building will back almost onto our back garden, with the proposed access route for cars directly behind our garden fence.

‘It seems utterly incongruous to build any house, even a bungalow, on what is possibly the last remaining area of green site land left on Sandbanks. There are so few areas of untouched land left here.

‘Sandbanks is already completely overburdened with building. It will seem like a miniature Manhattan, albeit with not quite so tall buildings – but at least Manhattan has a Central Park, which contributes a bit of greenery and trees.’

He continued: ‘This proposed building is a clear sign of over development of a completely unsuitable small remaining piece of land in the very middle of block of flats and houses.

‘This is not an area on which to build, and it is certainly not going to help towards the country’s housing problem.’