AN Ilkley hotel faced losing its entertainment licence today because of residents' claims that their lives were being made a misery by 'unbearable' noise.

Bradford Council's Licensing Panel was due to meet at 3pm to decide whether the Craiglands Hotel, on Cowpasture Road, should have its public entertainment licence renewed.

The council has received a letter and petition objecting to the application for renewal from residents of nearby Craiglands Park. In November, after residents' complaints, the hotel was served with a noise abatement notice which it has appealed against.

But the couple who wrote the letter of objection - and who recently put their house up for sale - told the Gazette yesterday that the noise was no longer a problem.

In a letter to the council dated February 5, 2001, Alistair Barnard and his wife said the noise coming from the Craiglands had become unbearable and was causing them to feel concerned for their young family.

"Since the new owners have taken over, the hotel is used like a night club and late night disco and functions can go on till one1 o'clock and two o'clock in the morning. Once the functions have finished we then have the pleasure of listening to car doors banging, cars starting up and then leaving" they wrote. "The time it becomes peaceful can vary from two o'clock until four o'clock in the morning.

"We feel that if the Entertainment Licence was reviewed with regard to the hotel being in a residential area and the hotel's Entertainment Licence time reduced to midnight this would help the noise problem we suffer."

Although the letter of objection was written just over two months ago, Mr Barnard, 29, claimed yesterday that noise from the hotel had not been a problem since last year.

"It certainly wasn't a problem over Christmas and New Year. In February we were just chasing up Environmental Health," he said. "It hasn't been a problem for the last six or seven months. There was a bit of a problem before that."

But Councillor Martin Smith, Chairman of the Licensing Panel, said the hotel could lose its licence altogether.

"There have been complaints about noise and nuisance," he said. "It's not possible at the moment to pre-empt the decision as it's a semi-judicial decision.

"Environmental health has issued a notice and it has gone to court and been delayed. Now we will make some sort of decision."

Despite banding together to send the petition - signed by 16 households - Craiglands Park residents now can't agree on whether the hotel is creating too much noise or not.

Joyce Jones said: "You can't sleep, when I had a visitor it was most embarrassing. The weekends are the worst, and it must be deafening for those that live closer."

And her husband Thomas Jones agreed. "When it's warm and they open the windows it's worse," he said. "It's not as bad for me because I can take my hearing aid out, but it's hard for my wife to sleep".

Susanne Haddock, said she would like the noise to stop: "It's not too bad in the winter but in the summer when they open the windows it gets quite bad."

But Jane Butterworth, whose husband signed the petition, said she would not like to see the licence revoked.

"My husband and I were at a disagreement over this," she said. "The only problem we ever had was in summer on the warm evenings when they opened up the patio doors. To be fair to them they have kept their doors closed."

David Denton, Acting General Manager at the Craiglands Hotel, said yesterday he did not wish to comment.