Agenda item

Claire Francis (Public Protection Manager – Community Protection) has prepared the attached update on behalf of the Public Protection Licensing Team and will give an overview at the meeting.

Claire Francis (Public Protection Manager – Community Protection) referred to the Public Protection Licensing Team update that was circulated with the agenda and highlighted the following:

·        The Licensing Officers had been carrying out unannounced visits to premises ahead of the Euros football tournament to offer advice and support and are based on the Officers own knowledge of premises likely to be showing the football matches. This information would be feedback to the Police who will then be aware of those premises showing matches;

·        The Government had confirmed an order to provide venues in England and Wales with the option to extend licensing hours on the day of any semi-final involving a home nation team or the day of the final should a home nation team be participating. The extension would be for two hours from 11pm to 1am the following day for consumption of alcohol on the premises and provision of late night refreshment;

·        During the Covid pandemic the Government passed regulations allowing them to sell alcohol for takeaway, delivery and to drink in licensed pavement areas without changing their licence – those regulations would expire on 31 March 2025 and the Government were carrying out consultation for the available options after that date;

·        Both of the new managers in the Licensing and Food Safety teams had met with the Longleat management team to discuss the events they have planned for this year and to agree an inspection protocol – they have various large scale events planned and Officers are keen to engage at the earliest opportunity;

·        Event Safety Advisory Group (ESAG) meetings had been organised for WOMAD, Existence Festival and the summer solstice and Stonehenge and Avebury – these were a really useful way for various enforcement agencies e.g. Police, Fire, Environmental Protection and Highways to understand more about organisers plans and to ask questions to ensure that the event will be safe and well organised;

·        The team restructure was completed in March and Roy Bahadoor was appointed as Principal Licensing Officer.  As he would be carrying out the day to day management of the Licensing Officers there had been a few changes to the areas the Officers would be covering, and these were showing in the weekly list of applications sent out to Councillors;

·        John Carter had retired as the Head of Public Protection at the end of May and the first recruitment attempt was not successful back and it was planned to repeat this within the next 3 to 6 months with hopefully the position being filled by the end of the year;

·        The Public Protection Service would be moving to a new ICT system called Arcus Global and would open opportunities to speed up how applicants apply for licences and will start to automate some the licence processes.  It was going live today, and it was hoped that service disruption would be minimal; and

·        The Local Government Association had produced a range of tips and advice sheets for members of their Council’s Licensing Committees which Members may find useful.

The Chairman reported that he had spoken to the Chief Constable of Wiltshire in December 2023 about his concerns on the lack of Police licensing representation/input into the committee meetings and reported that he would write on behalf of the Licensing Committee to ask them to provide regular updates of their work and attend at least once a year.  A Committee member agreed that it would be useful to have at least six-monthly updates on what premises the Police were concerned about and if review applications were to be considered.

Roy Bahadoor highlighted that Alistair Day and Richard Tottle were the current Police Licensing Officers and that their team was keen to continue their working relationship with them having already liaised with them around the Euros 2024.  

A Committee member commented that he felt that the biggest problem with the large Longleat events was the traffic management and asked if they would liaise with Licensing or Highways to discuss that aspect? Claire Francis responded that some of the Longleat events are not licensable but confirmed that particularly for the Icons of the Sky event that traffic management would be considered as part of the ESAG meetings.

The Chairman asked if information had been sent to Members around the plans to extend licensing hours should a home nation reach the semi-final or final of the Euros so that they were aware of this.  Claire Francis responded that this may have already been included in a member update, but if it had not, she would issue an update to all Members around this.

Resolved:

1.      That the Committee note the update on behalf of the Public Protection Licensing Team.

2.      That the Chairman write to the Chief Constable of Wiltshire to invite the Police Licensing Officers to Licensing Committee meetings and ask they provide updates on at least a six-monthly basis.