The late bar will open at 10pm with last entry at 1am. The venue will close at 2am with guests asked to leave quietly and considerately via the hotel reception on Albert Embankment. A licence will be submitted for Thursday-Sunday trading with the expectation that initial opening will only take place on Friday and Saturday nights.

We expect many of the late bar guest to be residing in the hotel, therefore minimal external entry and departure will occur. External guests will be required to pre-book and will inform door staff of their arrival time. Pre-booking will close 30 minutes before opening.

Upon arrival guests will be directed to an entrance on Salamanca Street where they will come straight down to the basement bar without the need to queue on the street. To minimise disturbance, queue management, check-in and cloakroom will all happen inside the venue. Guests will depart throughout the evening, either to their hotel rooms, or to waiting cars or taxis. Guests will exit via Salamanca Street until 11pm and after that, through the hotel reception. It is anticipated that the late terminal hour will allow for a wider window for departing visitors and less busy dispersal of guests.

Congregation in the hotel lobby and outside the hotel will be discouraged to ensure that all of our guests and visitors have a good experience.

The venue will be managed by the existing in-house hotel team, headed up by General Manager Ivan Drinkwater. Security and door staff will be contracted to Premium Security, an established London security company who currently manage the hotel’s security. The team is led by Mason Haynes, a security specialist with a wealth of experience.

We plan to have security personnel stationed at locations around the basement, ground floor and outside the hotel to manage safe entry and exit of guests and deter any noise or antisocial behaviour.

There is already extensive CCTV provision on key entrances and public areas across the hotel. This will be extended to include new CCTV cover for mandatory areas required as part of the planning application for the new late bar.

A valet service for guests who arrive in their own vehicles is currently being considered and a table service will be in place whereby table waiting staff can arrange and inform guests when taxis have arrived outside.

There is space for four taxi/car drop off points at the front of the hotel, which can be managed with cones or bollards to avoid traffic build up. Door staff are on hand to manage the flow of traffic and to ensure effective egress.

There are excellent local public transport facilities close by with Vauxhall station 0.6kms and Waterloo station 1.6kms away. Both stations, as well as night bus services, are within easy walking distance.

The hotel currently has a dedicated smoking area on the corner of Albert Embankment and Salamanca Street. As a result of feedback from the community, this smoking area has been moved away from the corner of Salamanca Street and closer to the front of the hotel, to avoid disturbance to residents on Salamanca Street and pedestrians on the corner of Salamanca Street and Albert Embankment.

This area, with a capacity for 10 people, will be managed by the hotel General Manager and his team, assisted by security personnel.

One of our key considerations is the experience of our hotel residents. Providing a quiet and peaceful environment to promote quality sleep is an utmost priority. We are therefore committed to keeping music and noise levels contained so as not to disturb guests and residents. We have engaged with a leading acoustic specialist to ensure that industry standards are met and that the ultimate soundproofing solutions are incorporated to prevent escaping noise.

All high sound levels will be contained in the basement which is a subterranean concrete structure. There will be multiple sets of doors between the high sound level zone and external exits ensuring that there is no noise break-out to street level. There will be a state of the art sound system which includes a limiter that sets and locks the maximum noise level in the basement. The system is tamper-proof.

Noise management and dispersal policies are currently in place and have been built upon in the Operational Management Plan for the new late bar. These include step-by-step procedures for entry and egress of the late bar, management of the smoking area and the number of security staff on site. We have listened to consultation feedback and have updated plans using industry best practice and decades of real-world experience. Specific protocols have been tailored to this site and the needs of the neighbourhood.

As plans develop noise management procedures will be thoroughly reviewed, revised and updated and will form an integral part of operational standards and employee training.

A detailed noise survey was carried out for the area, with the following results:

- Continuous noise logging on Salamanca Street, Salamanca Place, Black Prince Road and Salamanca Square was carried out during the midweek as that is when the area has its lowest ambient noise levels. It included testing and subjective observations on the surrounding streets between midnight at 5am

- Noise levels have been assessed against National and Local policy criteria as well as the Licensing Act 2003, Home Office guidance and the Lambeth Statement of Licensing Policy

- Operational procedures for noise management including a Noise Management Policy and Dispersal Policy have been examined

- Control of noise breakout has been assessed noting that the closest noise sensitive uses are the hotel guests.

The hotels service and delivery schedule will not be affected. All deliveries take place Monday to Friday (7am-5pm) through the hotel loading bay. The late bar deliveries will follow the same schedule and the number of delivery vehicles is not expected to increase. All waste from the hotel is stored in the hotel loading bay and collected on the scheduled days between the hours of 7-11am. The late bar will be incorporated into the hotel collection schedules.