A POPULAR Hampshire restaurant has withdrawn an application to extend its opening hours and host live music after a spate of protests.

Fine Food 4 Sail asked civic chiefs for consent to remain open until midnight on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays but neighbours claimed that the resulting noise would keep them awake at night.

Objectors who wrote to New Forest District Council included Jane Du Cane, who lives near the busy eatery in Bath Road, Lymington.

She complained that neighbours had been disturbed by “rowdy and high-spirited customers”

leaving the restaurant since it opened in 2008.

Fellow critics Luke and Emma McEwen added: “Extending the (opening) hours will only result in us and neighbours being kept awake late into the night.”

Proprietor Paul Bayntun said the process of trying to obtain the necessary consent was “currently not worth the bother”.

However, he said he planned to submit a revised application.

Fine Food 4 Sail, currently open until 11.30pm, was at the centre of a planning row last year.

Mr Bayntun and his daughter Sophie successfully lodged an appeal after the council rejected their application to continue using the building as a restaurant, despite receiving 88 letters supporting the proposal.