John Lennon’s local pub wins planning row despite neighbours complaining over noise
John Lennon’s old local has won a planning row despite its neighbours complaining about the noise emanating from the 19th-century establishment.
Ye Cracke, on Rice Street in Liverpool, has been allowed to convert its cellar into a bar area.
However, the owners were facing backlash from neighbours, living next to the late Beatles’ local pub, with concerns over the noise levels the new converted cellar would bring.
Liverpool City Council licensing officials have allowed the renovation to go ahead.
Landlord Michael Girling told the BBC that he was confident the pub could be a considerate pub.
The publican said: “It harms me financially to close the beer garden at 9pm but I do because I want to be a good neighbour.
“I don’t know anything else we can do.”
However, objectors had expressed concerns that Ye Cracke’s staff have “so far been unwilling or unable to manage the customers’ noise and behaviour”.
Ye Cracke pub is located on Rice Street in Liverpool, a narrow residential road
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Former councillor Janet Kent, who lives locally, claimed Girling had “obfuscated” in response to the concerns surrounding the pub’s noise levels, describing how the new cellar will become a “den for football fans”.
This comes after locals living next to the pub lodged objections to the pub’s new bar in September.
One neighbour said: “Expanding into the former storage room increases the footprint and the number of customers on the premises, thus inevitably also the noise.”
They said one resident “cannot sleep and is actively looking to move” due to the noise levels.
John Lennon frequented the pub during his student days in the late 1950s and early 1960s | GETTYAnother complainant said: “One-on-one conversations over a drink are so loud I can literally follow the whole conversation from my bedroom and garden”.
The pub was described by the objectors as being previously a “a very quiet local neighbourhood pub” before new ownership.
Located within Liverpool’s Georgian Quarter, Ye Cracke is situated on a narrow road, surrounded by residential properties.
The pub changed hands in April 2025 and opened in September after being closed for refurbishment.
The site has existed since the 19th century, known as one of the city’s longest standing pubs.
Famous for being one of John Lennon’s favourite pubs in the 1950s and early 60s, he drank there whilst he was a student at the Liverpool College of Art, living nearby on Gambier Terrace.
The pub is apparently where Mr Lennon took his first wife, Cynthia Powell, on their first date.
British painter and musician Stuart Sutcliffe was also a local during that time, as he lived with the Beatles band member.
GB News have reached out to Ye Cracke for comment.
