The police responded to say that there was to be a meeting between the divisional commander and city council officers (they said they expected the Council’s Chief Executive to be involved).

Cllr Herbert asked that a joint statement from the council and police be issued following the meeting and asked that all councillors be informed of the outcome of the discussions.

Cllr Rosenstiel spoke to explain the licensing policy was unusual in that the council was compelled to renew it every three years. He said it was an area which the new government has said it wants to change and claimed that the Department for Communities and Local Government “don’t understand local government or consultation”.

Cllr Rosenstiel said that councillors were not kept well informed about new applications, he said he stays informed only by reading the notices pages of the local paper. He said that the council couldn’t do any more than it was already doing.

Barry Higgs commented on this saying surely there wasn’t anything preventing the City Council going over and above what it was required to do by law.

The City Council’s licensing officer Christine Allison said that there were risks in doing more promotion than required by law, and claimed there was a test case where publicising an application had “backfired” on another council.

Cllr Kightley said that cost was a key factor limiting what the council can do.

That was all in the “Open Forum” section of the meeting. When councillors came to the agenda item for discussing the licensing consultation Mr Higgs spoke again. He said he was unhappy that there was no consideration of the needs of the public in the licensing policy. He refereed to a current application for a licence for the new Waitrose on Fitzroy Street. He said that allowing the shop to sell alcohol would be of use to local residents, including himself. He explained a flaw in the system - that objections are not publicised as they come in - so people who object to the objections don’t have an opportunity to have their say. Had he known there were to be objections - he would have made a representation in favour of granting the licence he said. Mr Higgs was critical of the police’s approach to objecting to licences saying: “We’re not in prohibition, we’re not in a police state”.

Mr Higgs noted that maps of licensed premises circulated with the consultation did not difference between types of licensed premises, and noted there’s a big difference between a nightclub and a cafe or wine bar serving alcohol to maybe 20.00 at night; and such establishments were themselves completely different from

Councillors including Cllr Rosenstiel suggested that while Mr Higgs can’t formally register his support with the council anymore, he could write to the applicant and they would be able to refer to his support in their representations to the licensing sub-committee.

Cllr Bick asked about the Cumulative Impact Zones; for someone who has been a councillor for a number of years, he showed a shocking lack of understanding of the current position. He asked what the presumption against a licence actually meant, and asked if there was any automatic rejection or if there was “still an evaluative process”.

This prompted Cllr Hipkin to summarise the point Cllr Bick had been trying to make saying: “What’s special about the zones?”

The council officer explained that applicants had to rebut the presumption that by carrying out the licensable activity they would be contributing to the cumulative impact.

Cllr Dixon then made an erroneous statement to the committee. He said that that applications outside of CIZs in the city were approved automatically if there were no objections, but this did not happen within the zones. Neither the councillors or the licensing officer corrected him. Mr Higgs heckled and asked for an example of an automatically approved licence in a CIZ, but wasn’t offered one. (The Sea Tree on Mill Road was cited as such an example by Cllr Bedstead at the licensing committee as noted in the above article).

I thought it was shocking that none of the councillors asked the police, who were present, when they would be coming forward with their response to the licensing consultation and what their views are.

When Tesco in Mill Road was seeking a licence I tried to obtain the police representation. I was able to view some, but not all, of it by visiting the council offices. I was not permitted to view responses from others.

http://www.rtaylor.co.uk/planning-and-licensing-challenges-face-mill-road-tesco.html
http://www.rtaylor.co.uk/mill-road-tesco-application-for-alcohol-licence-refused.html

And to claim that ‘data protection issues’ would stop this is worrying, data protections seems to be becoming some kind of bureaucratic tool to prevent openness!

Adam

What would be great is if Brighton and Hove could share the system it is developing for putting licensing information online with other councils.

I’ve discussed open source development within Local Authorities with a few people; but even Cllr McGovern, who lists his interests as: “linux, open source, security” thinks it is unachievable on the grounds he says open source development costs more than creating propriety software for an institution’s own, sole, use. I believe he was referring to how much contractors would charge for producing software they would be prepared to release under open licences rather than software produced in-house where I can’t see anything which would result in a premium for open source coding.

As far as I know, this is a function of the national licensing guidance and law, it’s not something local policies can override. It’s a big problem for us licensing councillors in Brighton & Hove too.

The other big problem is that unlike planning, license applications have no requirement to inform nearby residents and businesses. Just one A4 sheet posted in a window is sufficient to meet the legal requirement. This puts the onus on sharp eyed councillors to get word out to locals.

At least here we have an online register to summary information about applications and existing licenses can be viewed remotely!

All the best,
Jason