RESIDENTS are celebrating after a Stretford pub's bid to continue serving until the early hours was thrown out.

The council's licensing committee refused to give the go-ahead for the Robin Hood pub to extend its licensing hours.

Nearly 350 residents had signed a petition calling for the extension application to be rejected and letters of objection flooded into the council.

Residents claimed they are already disturbed by noise, late night music and dancing at the pub - and they feared extended licensing hours would make the situation in the residential area even worse.

The fed up householders were backed by their three ward councillors - Stephen Adshead, Paul Dolan and Bernice Garlick - and MP Bev Hughes.

And around 60 to 70 residents attended the crunch meeting to hear the licensing committee refuse the application for extended opening hours for the pub.

Cllr Adshead told SUM after the decision: "We are obviously very pleased at the outcome and hopefully it will be an end to the matter and residents can get on with their lives.

"This is a residential area and extending the licensing hours would have exacerbated the existing problems. We were also concerned that up to 240 people could be leaving the pub and coming out onto the streets at the same time.

"The residents are certainly not killjoys and many of them actually drink in the pub. But they think the current licensing hours are bad enough in a residential area and they just want some peace and quiet."

The decision showed that residents' voices counted when decisions were made, he added.