Newcastle nightclub Chinawhite has closed for good and will imminently be put up for sale, its operators say.

The Fenkle Street club, located in the former Assembly Rooms, had faced having its licence revoked after council officials and Northumbria Police accused its bosses of mismanagement.

A lengthy list of complaints about the venue had included reports of assaults, thefts, and alleged druggings in and around the premises.

A delayed Newcastle City Council licensing hearing to decide Chinawhite’s fate was due to be held on Wednesday morning – but has now been pushed back for a further three months, in the hope that a new firm can take over the site and offer “clarity” about its future.

Ahead of the meeting, operator Lykos Leisure confirmed that the club has now ceased trading, that it has no intention of reopening the venue in any format, and that it will be put on the market.

Barrister Charles Holland, addressing members of the council’s licensing sub-committee, said: “Following careful deliberations, Lykos has come to the conclusion that they do not wish to continue to trade in a situation where the responsible authorities have lost faith in them and would wish to see their licence revoked.

"Trading conditions are tough enough for the hospitality industry at present and continued operations in these circumstances represent a challenge too far.”

Mr Holland called for Wednesday’s hearing to be deferred so that the club can be sold and a new operator return to the council at a later date to present its plans for the venue, arguing that it would be a “waste” of time for city authorities to seek to revoke a licence that Chinawhite bosses do not want to operate.

He added that Lykos Leisure “doesn’t accept that there were deficiencies in its management” and was “not seeking to hide” that it wanted to protect its own asset and make it easier to sell, but said that it was in the public interest for the building to be brought back into use as quickly as possible.

City council licensing boss Jonathan Bryce and Northumbria Police both pushed for the hearing to go ahead as planned, given the seriousness of the complaints about Chinawhite and the “protracted” delay to resolving the situation since the council first mounted a review of its licence last October.

The authorities’ evidence had included reports of illegal vapes being sold in the club’s toilets, social media adverts for the club featuring scantily-clad women, and news cuttings about incidents such as a fight in which Newcastle United footballer Jamaal Lascelles and his younger brother were allegedly attacked after having left Chinawhite.

Northumbria Police chief inspector David Wheeler said that problems at Chinawhite have been “persistent for a significant period” and accused it of a “failure of effective management”, while the venue had previously closed its doors following in incident this January after which its security staff were criticised for leaving two people involved in a brawl to “fight it out” and for not acting on an alleged sexual assault that was reported to them.

Police solicitor Hayley Hebb said on Wednesday that it was not necessarily in the public interest to delay a decision in order to give Lykos a “commercial advantage” when trying to sell the property.

She also raised concern that the company could theoretically seek to rebrand and reopen the premises if the site was not sold, whereas requiring a new operator to apply for a fresh licence would give them the chance for a “clean slate”.

But councillors on the committee agreed to adjourn the hearing until June 11, in the interest of a new operator being found who could give “clarity” on the venue’s future.

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Leo Charalambides, a barrister brought in to act as the council’s legal adviser, said that the committee had taken comfort from the pledge that Chinawhite would not reopen in the meantime.

He added that Lykos or any future operator “would be foolish to attempt to operate for a short period of time prior to the adjourned hearing and the licensing sub-committee would take a dim view of such an action”.

It was also confirmed that the hearing will proceed on June 11 whether a new operator has been found by then or not.