A COUPLE behind a Southampton pub rapped after noise complaints from neighbours have promised to install an array of new soundproofing measures.

Corrine Yendle and Damian Etherington, who run The Dolphin in St Denys, say they want to work with the community and the council to end a year-long row over noise levels at the live music venue.

It comes after licensee, Mrs Yendle, was hit with a £5,000 court bill after the pub, on Osborne Road South, breached a noise abatement notice from Southampton City Council.

Now the landlady, 50, says she plans to “spend thousands” improving the pub’s soundproofing measures for its outdoor music stage – around which the venue’s noise abatement breaches centred.

She said: “We are a community pub, for the community and we want to work with the community.

“The last thing we want to do is upset anyone.”

The couple, who have four children, said soundproofing panels will be installed around the sides and on top of the outdoor stage ahead of next summer.

They also promised a type of sound limiter which cuts power to the stage if noise levels exceed a set limit.

Mrs Yendle said the couple had planned to install the panels ahead of this summer.

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But she said they were unable to after a contractor, arranged by pub owners Enterprise Inns, did not show up to complete the work.

She added that the couple were not allowed to carry out the work as tenants of the pub.

Mrs Yendle also called for the council to be more “proactive” in helping the pub manage its noise levels.

She said: “We want to work with the council. We want them to be more proactive than reactive.

“Ahead of one night we asked them to come down and measure the sound and they said they did not have the manpower, but when someone complained they sent someone to that person’s house.”

As previously reported in the Echo, Mrs Yendle appeared at Southampton Magistrates’ Court last week to plead guilty to four counts of breaching a noise abatement notice.

The council says it first received complaints about noise from live bands performing on a stage in the garden in June 2018, and served Mrs Yendle with a noise abatement notice in June 2019.

Council environment officers found on four occasions in July and August 2019 the licensee had failed to comply with the notice.