A slew of irate residents are determined to stop an independent tapas bar from setting up shop.

On Tuesday (November 6) Epping Forest District Council's licensing committee will decide whether to allow businessman Steven Schaffer to open a restaurant at 75 Queens Road, Buckhurst Hill.

While Mr Schaffer has promised to implement a string of measures designed to keep noise and public disturbance to a minimum in a license application that led Essex Police and Buckhurst Hill Parish Council to raise no objections, residents living nearby are not happy.

"I believe a tapas restaurant would be of benefit to the area so I am not against the application in its entirety," one Kings Avenue man wrote.

"However, I am concerned that the late night refreshments request until 12am as well as recorded music past 11pm will affect residents in a very built up area."

A Queens Road resident, also writing on behalf of her neighbour, said people leaving similar premises had previously been an issue.

She wrote: "We have both had lots of problems with another restaurant opposite us and really don't want these problems to start again."

Others were less quick to mince their words.

In a scorching rejection of the proposals, another Queens Road woman wrote: "It is already a disgustingly noisy place. "The litter has escalated beyond belief with beer bottles and rubbish dumped in my drive way from this properly.

"It will bring in the wrong people into the neighbourhood. I for one would like to encourage an up market feel to the place - not a raucous club effect.

"It is lowering the price of the property."

Whether such objections will win out over Mr Schaffer's tapas ambitions remains to be seen.