Issue - items at meetings - Licensing: Health Impact Assessment

Report of the Director of Strategy and Governance on the recently published Licensing Health Impact Assessment (referred to HOSC from Licensing Committee) (copy attached)

74.1    This item was introduced by Tim Nichols, Head of Environmental Health and Licensing, Brighton & Hove City Council.

74.2    In response to a question, Mr Nichols told members that although the consumption of alcohol and alcohol-related hospital admissions had undoubtedly risen in recent years, alcohol-related public place crime and disorder had actually fallen after an initial rise following the liberalisation of licensing laws by the Licensing Act (2003). This fall included the central area of the city covered by the Cumulative Impact Area. However, it is impossible to tell how much of this fall may be due to people using extended hours to drink more sensibly, and how much is due to improved policing of the night time economy via initiatives such as ‘Operation Marble’.

74.3    Mr Nichols informed members that public health was not formally a licensing policy objective, although several of the formal objectives could be seen as relating to public health.

74.4    In answer to a query as to whether current rates of alcohol-related public place crime and disorder were higher than the rates twenty or so years ago, Mr Nichol told the committee that it was very difficult to compare the two periods, as the police have changed the way they record low-level crime and disorder to such a degree as to make statistical comparison almost impossible. However, speaking anecdotally, Mr Nichols had heard long-serving police officers compare the current situation with regard to city centre drinking favourably with the situation in the 19802 and 1990s.

74.5    RESOLVED – The report was noted.