Morley’s Chicken on Roehampton High Street has its late-night licence, but not until 2am.
The council’sLicensing Sub-Committee granted the application yesterday following a hearing on 11 June but set its own closing time: midnight, every night of the week.
That’s two hours earlier than Morley’s had agreed with the Metropolitan Police, and three hours earlier than the original application.
The committee said a uniform midnight closing would reduce antisocial behaviour and early-morning noise, while giving the premises and its customers “clarity on expectations.” No objector had asked the committee to impose midnight rather than 2am; it reached that line on its own initiative.
Alongside the licence came three additional conditions, all added by the committee rather than proposed by the applicant. Staff must check for litter outside the premises every hour during late-night trading. Signs at every exit must remind customers to dispose of waste lawfully. Delivery drivers must be told: no idling engines, no pavement parking, no obstructing the road. The litter issue that came up repeatedly at the hearing produced the most concrete outcome.
Objections
Ten residents had written in to object before the hearing. Two of them came in person on a Wednesday evening to say it to the committee’s face, a small but telling sign of how much people in this long-overlooked corner of the borough care about which way it goes.
The Revd Joshua Ray, vicar of Roehampton, had asked the committee not for a refusal but for a reckoning: he wanted councillors to consider what kind of place Roehampton High Street should be. He described Roehampton as having “become this kind of zone of tolerance, which is, oh, well, nobody cares about Roehampton, let’s stick another fast food joint there.” The midnight cap, two hours earlier than applied for and one hour earlier than what was agreed with police, is the committee’s partial answer to that question.
Anna Pritchard, who lives on the high street and attended to object, struck a different note in closing. She told the committee that her children visit Morley’s and that the business has her support, but she asked it to do more to become an active part of the community, not just a business on it.
On one contested point from the objections: Shan Jeyakkumar, the owner of the Morley’s brand who spoke at the hearing on behalf of the franchise, told the committee that a fight referenced in objections had started at the Angel pub opposite and spilled into the shop, and that Morley’s had cooperated with police and handed over CCTV footage.
That fight became one of the reasons cited by the police for why it should revoke the Angel’s licence earlier this year. The committee also rejected that request.
Any party wishing to challenge the decision has 21 days from notification to appeal to Lavender Hill Magistrates’ Court. The decision notice was issued on 15 June 2026.
