The Maylands Avenue KFC has applied to sell hot food until 1am every night. One neighbour objected, and that alone sends it to a hearing on Friday 18 September.

Update, 27 September 2026: the licence was granted. Dacorum’s Licensing of Alcohol and Gambling Sub-Committee granted the application “as applied for” at the hearing on 18 September, according to the draft minutes published on 25 September. The licence allows:

  • late night refreshment indoors, 11pm to 1am, Monday to Sunday
  • recorded music, 10am to 1am, Monday to Sunday
  • opening to the public, 10am to 1am, Monday to Sunday

The story below was published before the hearing and is unchanged.

The KFC at 47 Maylands Avenue wants to keep serving until 1am, seven nights a week, and a single neighbour has forced that request in front of councillors.

The application is for a new premises licence at the restaurant, which already trades. Hot food sold before 11pm needs no licence at all, so what is being asked for here is the window from 11pm to 1am (officer’s report).

Dacorum Borough Council’s Licensing of Alcohol and Gambling Sub-Committee hears it at 10am on Friday 18 September in the Council Chamber at The Forum, Marlowes. The meeting is public.

What is applied for

Three things, on the same clock every day of the week:

  • late night refreshment, indoors, 11pm to 1am, Monday to Sunday
  • recorded music, 10am to 1am, Monday to Sunday
  • premises open to the public, 10am to 1am, Monday to Sunday

The restaurant sits in Adeyfield East ward. The applicant named in the report is SME Corporation 2 Ltd. Companies House lists an active company of that name, registered at Runway House in Ruislip and classified under unlicensed restaurants and cafes (Companies House).

The restaurant was inspected by Dacorum’s food safety team on 13 August 2026 and holds a five-star hygiene rating (Food Standards Agency).

One objection, and it is about the drive-through speaker

Under the Licensing Act 2003, a single relevant representation is enough to trigger a hearing. The council received exactly one, from a resident living directly behind the premises, dated 12 August.

Every responsible authority consulted said nothing. The report records no representations from the police, the fire officer, planning, trading standards, public health, or the council’s own environmental and community protection pollution team.

The objection is not about the restaurant existing. The resident wrote that their representation was “made specifically in relation to the licensing objectives, principally the prevention of public nuisance and prevention of crime and disorder, rather than as a general objection to the business itself”.

Their argument is that the noise problem is already measurable rather than hypothetical. They say they can hear the drive-through ordering speaker from their property during the day and the evening, and that children’s bedrooms at the back of the house face it. Extending to 1am, they argue, would push an existing source of noise into the hours when people are asleep.

The representation lists what a drive-through open until 1am would add: vehicle movements, engine noise and idling, the ordering speaker, music from customers’ cars, doors opening and closing, headlights across neighbouring windows, and people talking in the queue.

It also takes aim at the mitigation offered in the application, which includes signs asking customers to leave quietly. “A sign asking customers to behave quietly cannot reasonably control the volume or operation of a drive-through speaker,” the resident wrote.

Two asks are put to the committee. The first is refusal of the 11pm to 1am late night refreshment. The second, if the committee is minded to grant it, is a set of specific conditions: controls on the speaker’s volume, on idling, on deliveries and waste collections, on lighting, and a written procedure for handling noise complaints. The representation also suggests the drive-through could take orders at the window rather than through the speaker.

The resident’s one open question is about the recorded music line on the application. They asked the council whether it refers to the drive-through speaker or to music inside the restaurant. The papers do not answer it.

How this compares with the other hearing that morning

The same three councillors, Jonathan Gale, Terry Douris and Ron Tindall, sit on a second hearing at 11am, on a premises licence for Camelot rugby club on Chaulden Lane. That one drew 29 representations, and the council’s own pollution team objected to it.

That contrast is worth holding on to. The pollution team reads every one of these applications. On a fast-food drive-through open to 1am beside houses it said nothing. On a rugby club it objected in detail. The difference in the papers is outdoor amplified music, which the KFC application does not seek.

What the committee can do

Four options, set out in the officer’s report: grant the licence with conditions, cut activities out of it, refuse to name the proposed premises supervisor, or reject the application outright. Officers make no recommendation, which is standard practice here.

Anyone who is a party to the hearing can appeal to a magistrates’ court within 21 days of being notified of the decision.

What it means for you

If you live behind the Maylands Avenue restaurant, Friday sets the closing time and the conditions that go with it, and a premises licence does not expire.

You cannot object now; the consultation period has closed. You can attend the hearing, at 10am on Friday 18 September in the Council Chamber at The Forum, Marlowes, HP1 1DN.

The wider point for anyone in Hemel Hempstead is how low the bar is. One email from one household, sent inside the consultation window and tied to a licensing objective rather than to general dislike of a business, is enough to stop a licence being granted over the counter and put it in front of three councillors in public. That is worth knowing before the next application goes up on a lamp post near you, and it is the same principle that runs through planning applications in the borough.

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