Defenders of the World’s End pub in Finsbury Park: Joe Meekel, Raevenn Breen and Ellen Quirke

THE World’s End pub in Finsbury Park has been told it can continue to play live music until 11pm, after a year of noise complaints by one neighbour led councillors to review the venue’s operating licence.

The Town Hall was full of the pub’s supporters at a nearly two-hour-long hearing on Wednesday night, where the complaining resident, Islington’s noise experts, and Greene King – which has run the World’s End since 2012 – laid out their arguments for the future of the pub.

The crux of the disagreement was noise.

As Independent councillor Phil Graham summarised: “They’ve got one opinion about what is noisy, you’ve got another opinion about what is noisy, and until you can agree on it, you can’t agree on what works need doing to alleviate the problem.”

The venue’s next-door neighbour, Axel, who requested the hearing, told of the stress and disruption to his family’s life from constant bass vibrations since they bought their flat a year ago.

He urged councillors to ban live music from the pub – at least until it is soundproofed and approved by Islington’s noise team.

“This is not a personal vendetta – this is structurally predictable,” he said.

“We can hear when the announcement for the pub quiz is happening inside of the pub.

The World’s End pub [Joe Meekel]

“That’s the level of impact that we can have from them. This is not simply about turning down the music, this is a structural transmission of sound through properties.”

But Greene King’s representative said the pub has made proactive efforts to control noise since Axel’s complaints, including employing an acoustic consultant and moving speakers away from the wall between the two properties.

To ban music “in its totality” would “chop the legs off of this pub”, he said, adding that to do so on the complaints of a single local resident would be “disproportionate”.

Three residents also spoke in support, including Ellen Quirke, who lives a few doors down from the World’s End.

She said: “I moved here in January [2025] not knowing anyone, and the pub became something that was really important to me personally.”

It was at the World’s End that she met the people “who have now become my family here”, and said it had been valuable “mental health-wise” in giving the sense of belonging to a community.

Another supporter, Joe Meekel, who runs the Instagram account Finsbury Park Focus, said that “music is part of Finsbury Park’s soul” – referring to the World’s End’s long history as a grassroots music venue.

And while Islington’s noise team agreed with Axel that the pub had not done enough to limit noise, councillors ended up supporting the continuation of live music at the World’s End.

They approved a new operating plan – submitted by Greene King before the hearing – that stated music would end at 11pm until new acoustic arrangements were agreed with the council, and urged the publicans to work with Islington’s noise team on a long-term solution.