A primary school’s bid to host events for up to 1,500 people has been described as ‘horrific’ by neighbours.

Coombes Primary School’s Parent Teacher Association (PTA) in Arborfield has applied to Wokingham Borough Council for a premises licence to host events for up to 1,500 people. This would include playing films and live music with the supply of alcohol on all days of the week, some until 11pm.

Appearing at the Wokingham Borough Council Licensing and Appeals Hearing Subcommittee on Tuesday, September 24, the head of the school’s PTA said the licence would be used on an ad-hoc basis.

The application was sent to get permission to boost numbers of the school’s annual ‘Laser works’ event, held in November, currently restricted to under 500 attendees.

Hannah Wilson, on behalf of the Coombes PTA, told the subcommittee that they were likely to only sell 50 to 100 more tickets, but were applying for a wider range of possibilities so further applications were not necessary in the future.

Mrs Wilson said: “We are not going to be running significantly larger events; we don’t have the resources.

“I can’t get people to volunteer for 20 minutes, so getting people to volunteer seven days a week until 11 o’clock is never going to happen.”

Two neighbours were in attendance and voiced their concerns over the plans. Joy Meaton, who lives two doors down from the school, said the application covering ‘every single day from morning to night is horrific’.

The resident added that she was worried ‘these events are going to escalate’ given the scale of what is presented by the application.

Those living on School Road already struggle with the noise and parking during the day, which would be exacerbated by more events, she argued.

Mrs Wilson assured that her team had ‘no plans for a full on rage’ and were applying for ‘pretty standard hours’ for these types of applications.

But council officers and members noted that given the licence is for the school premise and not the PTA in charge of events, it is possible that events could go beyond what was being planned.

hair of the subcommittee Councillor Marc-Brunel Walker said: “When you look at the application, obviously it could be viewed as horrific from some things you’re wanting to do, and I can very much understand why the hours are causing angst and real concern for the local residents.”

A final decision will be made by the subcommittee and will be published in the coming days.