Agenda item

Purpose: To bring the revised Statement of Licensing Policy, following consultation, to the Licensing Committee for comment prior to consideration by Council on 6 December 2018.

The Committee considered a report (Agenda Item 4) which set out the revised Statement of Licensing Policy which was amended following a consultation exercise. The Council’s policy had to be re-published by the 11 December 2018.

Prior to the item being discussed the Chairman noted that the Licensing and Gambling Policies did not follow a similar format. Charlie Fletcher explained that the documents were legally required to include different information. The Chairman requested that where possible the documents should be harmonised in future iterations.

Councillor Graham Bridgman requested some minor changes to the layout of the document. He also requested that the word ‘borough’ be replaced with ‘district’ throughout this policy and the Gambling Policy. In addition he requested that quotes be set out in italics to make them easily identifiable and that a standard format be used for setting out times. It was also requested that the words Safer Community Partnership be replaced with Building Communities Together.

It was noted that although work was being undertaken to align policies with Bracknell and Wokingham Councils each authority was required to adopt their own Statement of Licensing Policy.

The Committee considered the policy in great detail and requested that a number of typographical and grammatical changes be made to the document.

The following key changes were requested:

·         Reference be made to the ability to submit electronic submissions in the ‘Making an Application’ section (see paragraph 3.1);

·         It be made clear in paragraph 6.3 that the provision of potable water was compulsory in premises licensed to sell alcohol;

·         Amend paragraph 8.6 to state that Challenge 25 had to be included as an age-monitoring scheme except in exceptional circumstances;

·         To include a  list of the Responsible Authorities in the definitions which would remove the need to list them in other parts of the document e.g. paragraph 9.2;

In response to the comments made during the consultation exercise by Punch Taverns in relation to Agent of Change , the Committee noted that this concept was not currently enshrined in law. If it was legislated for the document would need to be revisited to see what, if any, changes were required. Councillor Bridgman requested that Officers ensure that the ability by Officers to make or accept minor variations to applications be covered in the Scheme of Delegation. Members noted the comments around licensing being a ‘quasi judicial’ or administrative process. They noted that there was a lot of debate about this by legal experts. The Committee agreed to retain the terminology ‘quasi judicial’ until this issue was resolved. .It was agreed that Officers would send the amended policy to Punch Taverns so that they could see the impact their comments had had on the document.(Sean Murphy to Action)

It was noted that the comments from Holybrook Parish Council largely related to the original policy which had been amended. The Committee stated that they would not contact individual residents about licensing applications. Local Ward Members were already informed as was the Parish Council. In addition advertisements were placed in local newspapers, blue notices were put up on site and the applications were placed on the Council’s website. The Committee were of the opinion that as the Council received objections to applications the system was working and they therefore decided that it would not be appropriate to add affected residents to the list of groups notified. It was agreed that Officers would respond directly to the Parish Council on the issue of the ‘late night levy’. (Sean Murphy to Action)

The Committee noted the consultation response from Public Health and Wellbeing West Berkshire. In particular they considered the comments about the sale of ‘beers, lagers and ciders over 6.5% which were sold in plastic bottles or metallic cans’. Officers stated that it would be difficult to adopt this principle without an evidence base that this issue was causing the licensing objectives to be contravened in a locality. There were other rules for dealing with the behaviours associated with this concern including not selling alcohol to people that appeared to be intoxicated.

RESOLVED that:

·         The requested amendments be made to the document;

·         The amended document be circulated to the Committee prior to it being published in the Council agenda;

·         The amended policy be recommended to full Council for approval at the 06 December 2018 meeting;

·         The amended document to be circulated to those that had responded to the consultation;

·         Authority be delegated to the Head of Legal Services in consultation with the Head of Public Protection and Culture to ensure the revised document was consistent with the Scheme of Delegation.