Agenda, decisions and minutes

To elect a Chairman for the meeting of the Sub Committee.

Nominations for a Chairman of the Licensing Sub-Committee were sought and it was,

Resolved:

To elect Councillor Ernie Clark as Chairman for this meeting only.

The Chairman explained the procedure to be followed at the hearing, as contained within the “Wiltshire Licensing Committee Procedural Rules for the Hearing of Licensing Act 2003 Applications”.

The Chairman gave details of the exits to be used in the event of an emergency.

To receive any declarations of disclosable interests or dispensations granted by the Standards Committee.

There were no interests declared.

To determine an application for a Premises Licence in respect of Thoulstone Park  made by Sustainable Land and Events Ltd

The Public Protection manager introduced the report detailing the application for a premises licence and the options available to the Sub-Committee.

Mr Phillip Day, the Applicant’s Solicitor, on behalf of and with contributions from Mr Alex Lepingwell, the applicant, and Mrs Holly Keeter, the proposed Designated Premises Supervisor, presented the case in support of the application. Mr Day raised points including but not limited to the following:

·         None of the events held on the site in 2014 had required a full premises licence, and those which required specific permissions had been covered by Temporary Event Notices (TENs). The applicants could continue to operate in such a manner, which would permit among other things the use of amplified music between 8am and 11.00 p.m. so long as the audience was less than 500 people, and free alcohol events, but they wished to have more flexibility with the range of days on which events could be held and what would be permitted on those days, including the provision of late night refreshment.

·         Mr Day emphasised that with TENs applications no conditions applied if there was not a premises licence of some kind on the site, it was either granted or not. The regulatory mechanism of a licence and its conditions would ensure the applicants were restricted to specific uses, mitigate any negative impacts from use of the site more effectively, and be punished in the event of breaches more easily.

·         At present, although there was an abatement notice still extant on the site arising from noise problems in the past, there had been no breaches of that notice, which would need to be at the level of statutory nuisance. A licence would be more restrictive, as previously stated.

·         It was acknowledged there had been problems on the site with the Sunrise Festival in 2013, but the licence as applied for would not permit such a large event, with a focus on smaller, community events of around 500 people. A new management team was also in place from that of the Sunrise Festival, and no objections had been received from any responsible authority to the new application for the site.

Members of the Sub-Committee then asked questions of Mr Day. In response to a query as to how the applicants intended to give the police 28 days notice of a proposed event, as was suggested as a condition, given the licence had not been granted and some events planned would be sooner than that, it was stated that a list of planned events had been supplied to the police for their information, to allow them to prepare for such events should permission be granted by the Sub-Committee.

It was also confirmed that the noise abatement notice had been served on the current applicants as well, but that the person who had been primarily in charge of the site at the time the abatement notice had been served was no longer involved with the business or the current licence application.

Questions were then received  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.