Agenda item - Chair's Communications

The Chair gave the following communications:

It’s been a very busy period for Licensing Reviews as well as some very significant applications as well – the Licensing Team and our Panel members have dealt with a number of standard Licensing reviews brought by the Police and by Immigration, and in January we received 2 expedited reviews. These applications are normally rare, as they are urgent reviews where the Police are concerned that the premises are associated with some serious crime or disorder. Obviously we hope that we don’t have too many more of these but it shows how seriously we take everything, that they were brought so quickly and efficiently dealt with, so I send my thanks and appreciation to everyone involved with those.

The House of Lords select committee gave recommendations back in April 2017, and the select Committee has now given a follow up report that focuses on the coordination of Licensing and Planning, the Agent of Trade Principal and the importance of member training, some of which has been adopted in the recently revised version of the S182 Licensing guidance which was issued by the Home Office and is important as it states that the Licensing Authority must have read the guidance, and there’s also an intention to make specific references to spiking in the guidance, with the intention of raising awareness and encouraging those with Licenses or applying for Licenses to thoroughly consider what, if any, measures need to be put in place to deter spiking happening, and to ensure that Licensing Authorities are giving due regard to issues around spiking. Going forward we can look at this an other aspects as well to see how that would shift as we review.

In response to the Manchester Arena bombing, the Government has introduced plans to introduce a new bill to implement Martin’s Law. The New duty will require venues to take steps to improve public safety with measures dependent on the size of the venue and what activities are taking place within it. A fuller annual report of the Licensing Authority will come to the next Committee in June.

On that note, this could be the last Licensing Committee for all members – so if I’m not fortunate to return in this chair or on the other side of the table, I just want to say a massive thank you to officers across Licensing who do an outstanding job and to Tom, our Democratic Services Officer who’s one of the best, as well as to all members who I’ve really enjoyed working with – thank you for being so generous with your knowledge and experience, its been a real privilege to serve as a Councillor and your Licensing Chair.