Olympia Square Alcohol Licence Granted: 10am to 9pm Daily

The Square, the open public space at the heart of the rebuilt Olympia, can now sell alcohol every day of the year. A council Licensing Sub-Committee granted the licence on Wednesday 7 October, but cut an hour off the start: sales can run from 10am to 9pm, not the 9am to 9pm the owner asked for.

The panel also added one condition of its own. Any drink sold to take away must go out in a sealed container. The summary of decision was published on 8 October.

Olympia is on Hammersmith Road in West Kensington, about a mile and a half north of Fulham Broadway.

What was asked for, and what was granted

The applicant is Olympus Property Holding Limited, a Jersey-registered company, through its solicitors TLT. The committee report describes The Square as a public space on level 2 of the redeveloped Olympia Central Square, open to the public 24 hours a day.

The applicant’s own conditions include:

• HD CCTV covering every area where alcohol is sold, kept for 31 days
• no bar serving alcohol after 9pm on any day
• door staff on a risk-assessed basis, with a register of every shift
• a Challenge 25 policy, a refusals book and an incident log
• a written policy on drink spiking and the Ask for Angela scheme
• counter-terrorism training for managers and staff

Those are listed in the application and operating schedule.

Seventeen objections, no police objection

The council received 17 objections. One came from Street Hub, a group of residents living north and west of the development, and 16 from individual residents.

Street Hub’s letter asked the council to refuse. Its main points:

• The Square, also called Emberton Walk, is a pedestrian route through the site, not a controlled venue, and off-sales would push drinking into nearby streets.
• The stairs and escalators up from Olympia Way and Hammersmith Road are long and steep, a trip risk for anyone who has been drinking.
• Noise from the site’s existing bars is already a problem, and the group says residents have complained to the council about amplified music from one of them.
• Two secondary schools are within a three-minute walk, one of them inside the development, and St Paul’s Girls’ School is about six minutes away.

If a licence was granted, Street Hub asked for no off-sales, much shorter hours and a ban on amplified or live music in The Square. The committee kept off-sales but required them to be sealed, and moved the start time back an hour.

The Metropolitan Police did not object. Its licensing team wrote on 5 August that it supported the conditions the applicant had proposed, according to the police correspondence. The report records no warnings, cautions or prosecutions at the premises in the past three years.

Why Olympia wanted a full licence

Until now, events on The Square have run on Temporary Event Notices, short permissions that have to be filed for each event. The list attached to the report shows ten of them, from a launch on 9 June to 26 July 2026.

In its submission to the panel, the applicant said the notices were “administratively burdensome” and that a licence would cut its reliance on them. It said events so far had been modest: acoustic music and DJs from 12pm to 5pm on Wednesdays and Sundays, and craft workshops for up to 15 people. It said it had received no complaints caused by them. It called the suggestion that it wanted alcohol and music 11 hours a day, every day, a way “to somewhat catastrophise the proposal”.

A White City restaurant licence decided the same night

The same panel granted, in part, a licence for Ajet E&E Restaurant Ltd at 91 Bloemfontein Road, W12, in White City, about three miles north of Fulham Broadway. The council’s Noise and Nuisance team and one resident had objected.

After talks with the police, the restaurant had asked to sell alcohol until midnight on Saturdays and 11pm on Sundays, and to serve hot food until 2am on Saturdays. It got less, per the committee report and the decision:

All the conditions agreed with the police go on the licence. They include serving alcohol only with food and only to seated customers.

What it means for you

• If you live near Olympia, drinks can now be sold on The Square from 10am to 9pm every day, and anything taken away must be sealed. If you have a problem with noise or behaviour, the incident log and CCTV conditions give the council something to check. Report it to the licensing team at licensing@lbhf.gov.uk, and keep dates and times.
• Any resident, business or councillor can ask for a licence review if the conditions are not working. The council’s noise team handles live noise complaints.
• Appeals. The applicants and anyone who objected can appeal to the magistrates’ court within 21 days of being told the full decision. The full reasons have been sent to the parties but are not yet published.

For other licensing decisions this autumn, see our report on Ringo Pizza and Local Hero. Planning news across the borough is on our planning page.

Sources

• Summary of decision, Licensing Sub-Committee, 7 October 2026, London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, for both decisions, the hours granted and the appeal right.
• Agenda and papers for the meeting.
• Committee report, The Square, Olympia, for the application, the 17 objections and the enforcement history.
• Street Hub objection and applicant’s additional information.
• Committee report, Ajet E&E Restaurant, 91 Bloemfontein Road.