Sefton approved a sports bar with pool, snooker and darts above the shops at 27 Brows Lane, Formby. Customers are allowed in until 12.30am at weekends.
Formby village has a new sports bar with pool, snooker and darts, above the shops at 27 Brows Lane. Sefton Council’s planning permission lets customers in until 12.30am on Fridays and Saturdays, and until 11pm the rest of the week.
The venue is branded Potters Sports Lounge on its Facebook page. The planning record shows what it is allowed to be, and the conditions it has to keep to.
What the council approved
The application, DC/2026/00938, asked to turn first-floor offices at Troutbeck House into a sports bar. It was validated on 3 June. A planning officer approved it with conditions under delegated powers, and the decision was issued on 27 July.
The applicant’s planning statement describes about 238 square metres of self-contained office space above a row of shops. It has its own street door on Brows Lane. The plans include:
- a central bar and seating for small and larger groups
- several screens for showing live sport
- pool tables, a snooker table and dart boards
- storage and toilets
No external changes were proposed, so the frontage stays as it is.
The hours it can open
The officer’s report makes the opening hours a condition of the permission. Customers are not allowed on the premises outside these times:
| Days | Customers allowed |
|---|---|
| Sunday to Thursday | 9am to 11pm |
| Friday and Saturday | 9am to 12.30am |
The council’s environmental health manager said those hours were acceptable in the district centre, provided they were fixed by condition.
The other conditions
The permission carries four conditions in all. Besides the hours and the approved plans, the main one is noise. A scheme of sound insulation between the bar and the shops below had to be submitted to and approved by the council before the bar was used. It must then be kept in place permanently.
The report notes that no homes adjoin the premises. The existing air conditioning units are being reused.
Why the council said yes
The site is inside Formby District Centre, where the Local Plan’s Policy ED2 allows leisure uses if they do not undermine shopping. The officer’s view was that it passes that test for three reasons:
- the ground-floor shops stay as shops, so no retail unit is lost
- the hours would bring people into the centre by day and in the evening
- the area already has a mix of shops, cafes, restaurants and bars
No neighbours objected. Highways raised no objection either. The bar has no parking of its own, and the report points to on-street spaces on Brows Lane and Chapel Lane and the public car parks in the centre.
The applicant’s statement leaned on a comparable case in the borough: a first-floor leisure use approved at 17 Moor Lane, Crosby, in 2014 (DC/2014/01381).
What it means for you
If you live or shop in Formby village, this is another evening venue on Brows Lane. It sits next door to Emily’s at number 25, whose operating company went into liquidation in August.
Planning permission is not the same as a licence to sell alcohol. Serving drinks needs a premises licence from Sefton under the Licensing Act 2003, and that licence sets its own hours for alcohol. We could not find a notice for 27 Brows Lane on the council’s Licensing Act public notices page on 27 September. Whatever the licence says, the planning condition means customers must be out by 12.30am at the latest.
If late-night noise does become a problem, Sefton’s environmental health team deals with complaints. Breaches of planning conditions, such as trading outside the approved hours, can be reported to the council’s planning enforcement team. For other plans near you, see our Southport planning news page.
Have your say