Weapons thrown into their gardens. Drug deals in plain sight. One mother who will not let her 12-year-old daughter walk to the bus stop alone. For years, the people who live next to The Angel pub in Roehampton have watched, reported, and waited. Next week, they will finally be heard.
A licensing sub-committee will consider the Metropolitan Police’s application to review The Angel’s premises licence next Thursday 16 April. The 52-page committee pack, published this week, contains 10 formal representations from residents. Every one supports the police. Not a single person defended the pub.
Meanwhile, an online petition to save The Angel has gathered 621 signatures but is not mentioned once in the committee papers. In the eyes of the formal process, it does not exist.
The hearing is the next chapter in a story we first reported in February, when police raided the pub with a helicopter and drug dogs, made two arrests, and temporarily shut the premises. The petition had 291 signatures at the time. It has since more than doubled, but the formal consultation, which ran from 19 February to 18 March, drew support from only one side.
What the neighbours say
The representations, now on the public record, describe years of fear. Putney.news has chosen not to name the residents who submitted them in large part because a joint representation from the MP and Roehampton ward councillors says some residents were too frightened to participate at all.
One resident of Angel Mews, directly next to the pub, told the council that since November 2020 there has been “regular and recurring disorder associated with the premises, particularly during weekends and late night hours,” and that the problems are “not isolated incidents but form a consistent pattern over a period of more than five years.” He says he holds CCTV footage of licence breaches and records of complaints.
Another neighbour, a mother, wrote:
“I have a twelve year old daughter and I do not feel safe for her to be alone and walk to and from to the bus stop for school. Especially, once is gets dark out I would not feel comfortable to let her be even outside the house alone.”
She first wrote to the council on 2 February, before the formal consultation window had opened. She re-submitted during the formal period in March.
A mental health professional and local parent described more worrying behaviour:
“Obvious drug dealing on Roehampton High Street and Blackford’s Path, involving young people and older men,” and a “delivery service on e-bikes” near Roehampton Forest School operated by “young men on e-bikes in balaclavas.”
A neighbouring resident described a specific incident in October 2025 when “someone from the Angel Public house jumped over a fence and trespassed on our property causing damage to a garden fence. The police were in attendance.”
Two other residents independently described weapons being discarded into neighbouring gardens from the direction of the pub.
Promises made and broken
One resident’s submission details a pattern of broken commitments stretching back years. Residents were told that noise-limiting equipment had been installed to control disturbance from the pub and its garden. They were asked to stay home while it was tested. When they later complained about noise, they were told the equipment was faulty. When council officers eventually inspected the premises, they confirmed no noise-limiting equipment had ever been installed.
A separate failure compounded the problem. After residents spent months gathering evidence of noise disturbance, a noise abatement order was issued to the wrong company. It was sent to Young’s, the pub’s previous owner, rather than Punch Partnerships, which had held the licence since 2021. The order was invalid. The evidence could not be used.
The political response
Fleur Anderson, the MP for Putney and Roehampton, and all three Roehampton ward councillors, Graeme Henderson, Matthew Tiller, and Jenny Yates, submitted a joint representation supporting the police review. They want conditions imposed rather than outright closure, calling on the sub-committee to “oblige Punch to take measures immediately that will ensure the pub is well run and is no longer a source of crime or public nuisance.”
Their representation also reveals something the individual residents’ submissions do not say directly: that some people were too frightened to participate at all.
“Local residents have approached us and raised serious concerns,” the joint statement says. They have shared “photographic and video evidence of this, some of which appears to involve minors. However, they are too frightened to make their own representations, for fear of repercussions.”
Ten people spoke up. Others were too scared to.
The petition and the process
The petition, started by Jacky Wood on change.org, describes “certain individuals” who seek to close the pub and replace its management. Among those certain individuals are the Metropolitan Police. The petition praises 12 years of “dutiful” management. The 10 formal representations describe those same 12 years as a period of escalating disorder, drug dealing, and fear.
The gap between the two is stark. The petition attracted 621 supporters. But when the council opened its formal consultation, and police explicitly told residents how to participate and where to send representations, not one person submitted a formal defence of the pub. The petition carries no legal weight in the licensing process. It is not referenced in the committee papers.
Putney.news contacted Jacky Wood via the petition to ask whether signatories were aware that formal representations needed to be submitted separately, whether she knew the review had been applied for by the Metropolitan Police, and what outcome she hoped for at the hearing. No response had been received at the time of publication.
The management change
Thirteen days after we reported on the police raid in February, solicitors acting for Punch Partnerships applied to change the pub’s designated premises supervisor. Sara Ann Cox, who had been in the role for over a decade, was replaced by David William Slaughter. The application was filed on 17 February by TLT Solicitors.
Punch Partnerships was asked to comment on the allegations in the representations, the purpose of the management change, whether noise-limiting equipment had been promised but never installed, and whether it would attend the hearing. No response had been received at the time of publication. Punch Partnerships also did not respond when contacted for our February story.
What happens next
The hearing takes place online next Thursday 16 April at 7pm with a live webcast. The committee papers, including all 10 representations, are available on the council’s democracy portal.
The sub-committee’s options range from taking no action to revoking the licence entirely. In between, it can impose new conditions, remove the designated premises supervisor, or suspend the licence for up to three months.
If the licence is revoked, Roehampton loses half its pubs. Only The King’s Head, next door on the same street, would remain. For a community of around 20,000 people, one pub is an extraordinarily small number.
If conditions are imposed, the question becomes whether Punch Partnerships will enforce them. The pattern described by the 10 residents who spoke up, and the others too frightened to, is of promises made and broken over more than a decade.
