To consider any requests received in accordance with Part 4, Section B, paragraph 29 of the Council’s constitution.
Minutes:
Mr Francis Wilkinson, Secretary of the Highgate Society and a member of the Highgate Forum had submitted a deputation for the consideration of the Licensing Committee. In addressing the Committee, he stated that:
· He was aware of a number of occasions when local residents had found out about licensing applications too late to make representations. This was because the current arrangements for notifying applications were ineffective. This was contrary to Haringey’s Constitution and the Licensing policy. The Constitution had been updated in May 2022 and stated that one of its principal purposes was to support the active involvement of citizens in the process of local authority decision making and that the Council considered it important that the local community was fully aware of local licensing applications being made within its area. However, the current process was not working. This was because the notification was only by an A4 notice on the premises which was very easy to miss, an advertisement in the local paper which was very old fashioned as few people ever read them and if they did, they would not read the small print notices and by being put on the Council's website. At paragraph 23.4 of the Licensing policy, residents were advised to regularly check the Council's register of Licensing applications. As most people would be affected by an application only occasionally, perhaps every few years, this was quite unrealistic advice. No resident was likely to do a weekly check which was what would be required just on the off chance of discovering a licensing application that was relevant to them.
· He would make two alternative proposals. Firstly, that local residents be notified of Licensing applications as they were for planning applications - a long established process – or, secondly, that residents and businesses be able to sign up for licensing alerts in their ward. This approach had been taken by the London Borough of Camden following a deputation to them and worked well.
· The Licensing Team Leader had stated that she had asked for the second alternative, but she could not say if or when it would happen. She had further stated that the Licensing Committee had no say in whether or when this would happen. This could not be right.
· He asked that the Committee, as the responsible committee for the Licensing policy, ensured that the arrangements were consistent with the Council's constitution and its Licensing policy and asked for one or both of the proposed solutions be implemented with a date for the implementation which provided a commitment to the Committee.
In response to questions, Mr Wilkinson informed the Committee that:
· He understood that there was a weekly email to councillors about licensing matters which was not submitted to any community organisations or individuals. The Neighbourhood Forum was a statutory organisation and the Highgate Society was quite a large and long-established organisation, but it was possible that there would be people who would be affected by licensing applications who did not know about the organisations. It would be an improvement if the organisations were included in the weekly email circulation, it would not fully address the problem.
· A recent application in Haringey was in Archway Road where there was a premises that had applied for late night refreshment so that they could serve food all night. This was in an area that was largely residential apart from the shops on Archway Road. Residents were concerned that provision of late-night refreshment nearby a club would result in an increase to disorder. Residents were not aware about the application and the only way it was picked up was by him checking on the Haringey website and discovering that the application had been made. Another application was located in Camden, although part of it was in Haringey. The premises had applied to extend its premises to take over an adjacent premises, but only found out about the application very late. A further application to another premises, also not in Haringey was made to greatly extend operating hours and in fact were too late to submit a representation. These were all recent examples in the last year.
· The solution taken up by Camden which allowed for applications in a certain area to notify subscribers, once set up, was free to operate because it would be done automatically. However, physically circulating applications to local residents was a permanent recurring cost that the Council would have to meet. Until the alert system was set up, there should be notification by paper to residents.
In response to questions, Ms Daliah Barrett, Licensing Team Leader, informed the Committee that:
· The requirements that were set out in the Licensing Act was for the applicant to place a blue notice on their premises that provided an indication of what had been applied for and for the same notice to be advertised in a local newspaper. This was outside of the Council’s discretion and was a national requirement. Licensing had, in the past, sent out letters to addresses in a given radius of a premises. This resulted in the Licensing department needing to spend time including on weekends responding back to the complaints that generated from the residents who had complained that they had not been included in the select radius. It also proved to be counterproductive as it did not yield any further representations on licensing applications at the time. This had been attempted during the 2007-2008 period. Regulatory Services was having to move from the current IT platform and there was a project group that was currently looking at finding a new platform. A request had been made to obtain software which had the automatic generation of the notification Mr Wilkinson had requested. Anybody that was wishing to be notified of applications in their area was able to send an email to the Licensing inbox and the relevant link could be clicked on by residents could be sent to them. This link did not change so this could be used over and again.
· It was difficult for the small Licensing team at Haringey to be involved in continuous sending out of notifications to different groups and organisations over and above the statutory stakeholders that Licensing was required to ensure had sight of the applications. This was something that was particularly difficult to do with limited resources.
· The link was also shared with the Citizens Panel. There was also a Ladder Safety Community Partnership in Green Lanes who also had the link and would check on the link every so often for any application in the Green Lanes area.
Members commented that:
· It would be useful to consider and explore options further by Cabinet and officers and although it would be useful if there was a mechanism by which people could be alerted to applications, equally, there were many licensing applications all the time and it would not be right to overburden an already stretched team, so any response would need to be proportionate. The Council also had commitments to reducing carbon emissions and posting papers through doors could create additional issues. It also would not necessarily result in more people making representations. If there was an electronic system that could be used that residents could sign up to that would not be too onerous for the team, then a proposal could be taken forward.
· Businesses often changed and evolved how they operated and this would also have to be taken into consideration.