Agenda item

The Principal Licensing Specialist presented the report.  She explained that the Council was required to publish a Statement of Licensing Policy to enable duties to be carried out under the Licensing Act and that the Policy was required to be reviewed every five years.  She reminded members that at the Licensing Committee meeting held on 24 January, members agreed for consultation to take place on the draft Statement of Licensing Policy.  She said that consultation was conducted between 24 January 2022 and 10 June 2022 and that seven responses were received details of which were set out in Appendix A to the report. 

Members considered the responses received and made the following comments:

·         With reference to the comments made by Bruton Town Council, it was felt that it would be useful for an email to be sent to Town and Parish Councils informing them of any relevant licensing applications as information was not always picked up on the internet.

·         It was also queried how much additional work would be involved in communicating information of events to neighbouring parishes and whether neighbouring parishes were normally consulted if they were affected by an application.

·         If district councillors were to be made aware of significant applications, this information could then be communicated to the town and parish councils via attendance at meetings.

·         It was felt that there was no need to change the policy with regard to submitting a sufficiently detailed Event Management Plan.

·         Content for the information provided by the Director of Public Health to be added into the Policy.

·         In agreement with including a new reference to the Climate and Ecological Emergency.

In response to comments and queries, the Principal Licensing Specilaist informed members that:

·         The Council had a duty to consult with statutory consultees under the Licensing Act and this was undertaken directly.  As a result of developing case law, it was felt that contacting individuals could result in a flawed process.  Additionally, the Council was now required to publish all licensing applications on the Council’s website.  The consultation period was for 28 days therefore if the website were to be viewed twice a month every application would be picked up which would not be too onerous for town and parish councils to undertake.

·         Public Health was a statutory consultee under the Licensing Act, however, there was no public health licensing objective, therefore any comments made would relate directly to the other four licensing objectives.

·         Officers had looked at the HaLO tool with regard to cumulative impact but felt that the information provided was very generic and did not draw down to a specific area so officers felt that whilst the tool was available and could be used to look at alcohol related hospital admissions, the output information did not relate to a particular zone or a specific premises. 

·         There was reference to the climate and ecological emergency in the Policy to encourage applicants to consider taking steps during their event to reduce the burden on the environment but at the same time not compromising event safety, for example not using single use plastic cups.

At the conclusion of the debate, members were content to agree the recommendations of the report.