Licensing Act 2003
The Licensing Act 2003 provides a single integrated scheme for licensing premises which sell alcohol, provide entertainment to the public or provide refreshment late at night (after 11pm).
It affects a range of premises such as village halls, pubs, schools and food takeaways.
At the end of July 2009 two new changes were introduced under the Licensing Act 2009 - Minor Variations and removal of the requirement for a designated premises supervisor and personal licence at community premises.
On 7 December 2010 the Council approved its revised Statement of Licensing Policy which came into effect on the 7 January 2011. The Policy is attached below.
On the 25 April reforms to the Licensing Act came into effect. In summary these are:
- doubling the fines for persistent under age sale of alcohol
- making licensing authorities responsible authorities
- making health authorities responsible authorities
- lowering the evidence threshold for decisions
- allowing licensing authorities to suspend premises licences due to non payment of annual fees
- removing the 'vicinity' test to allow anyone to make representations under the licensing objectives
- reforming Temporary Event Notices - allowing environmental health authorities (EHA), as well as the police to object to a TEN; extending the grounds on which the police and EHAs can object to all four licensing objectives; giving LAs the discretion to impose any existing licence conditions on a TEN if there are objections from the police or EHA; providing more flexibility for TENs by extending the period of 96 hours (four days) for a single TEN to 168 hours (seven days) and allowing a limited number of late TENs to be submitted up to five days before an event
- changing the frequency of publication of licensing authority Licensing Policy Statements from 3 years to 5 years
- adding various offences to the list of relevant offences to be taken to account by licensing authorities when granting new personal licences.
Temporary Event Notices (TEN)
On the 25 April 2012 changes to TENs will come into effect. This enables late TENs to be given no later than 5 working days before an event but no more than 9 working days.
Minor variations procedure
Introduced in order to allow licence holders to make small changes to their premises licences/club premises certificates without the need for a full variation application.
Community premises
Venues like church halls, community halls and village halls may apply to remove the requirement to have a designated premises supervisor to authorise the supply of alcohol.
Public Registers
The public register shows all current licences and applications in progress.
Please contact the licensing team on 01730 234355/89 if you require further information.