WITNEY residents have launched a campaign to try to stop a Wetherspoon pub planned for the town.

The pub chain has applied to open in the former Palace nightclub in Market Square.

Some residents fear an increase in rowdy behaviour.

Resident Terence Jones, a retired director of Chiltern Motor Holdings, is among a group who are leafleting homes about the plan.

The 79-year-old said: “We have been on Church Green for 27 years, and progressively over the years there have been more and more problems, particularly on Saturday nights.”

He said he had had plant pots damaged and his car scratched by keys.

John Cassidy, 65, lives less than 50 metres from the potential development, said: “I don’t want to be a killjoy but it’s the kind of venue that lends itself to volume drinking, and the noise from that will travel.”

But councillor Steve Hayward, West Oxfordshire District Council member for nearby Curbridge and Ducklington, said: “We have been very much a growing town, and you can’t look to protect trade.”

The pub wants to open between 7am and midnight from Sunday to Thursday, and until 1am on Friday and Saturday. Alcohol would be sold from 9am every day.

Wetherspoon spokesman Eddie Gershon said: “We have a number of Wetherspoon pubs in residential areas and really don’t come across these kind of problems.”