Agenda item

The Councils income policy requires an annual review of the level of the fees and charges levied upon service users the aim of the review is to ensure that income generated ensures full cost recovery and that charges remain in line with increases being experienced in the cost of delivering services.

Ms Daliah Barrett, Licensing Team Leader, introduced the report.

The meeting heard that:

·      Enforcement of markets and enforcement of people legally street trading was a challenge.

·      There were issues that had occurred at car boot sales in Scotland Green market and at the car boot sale on White Hart Lane. What happened within the grounds was the responsibility of the operators and what happened outside on the highway was the responsibility of the Council (to take enforcement action). However, the Council needed proper resources to fully utilise its function. If it was to be a committed to having markets in the area and seeing a growth in the business sector, then the Council needed to enhance its enforcement sector. This may lead to the Council needing to consider increasing fees. 

·      Traders wanted to be able to come and trade in Haringey, but they did not want to have to pay a cost to do so. There once was a subsidy which allowed traders to trade for £4.00 a day and now the fee structure put in place was that a trader could apply for three days at a particular location. This was supposed to be set just for newcomers, but as regular traders had become accustomed to it, it would be hard to remove this offer from them. Therefore, traders would be allowed to have three days of trading in a row at a particular popup market location.

·      If the fees were increased, then contributors would not be able to trade in the borough and the whole market strategy could not be viable. The offer of the three dates captured traders who felt that they were benefitting from it.

·      It would be useful to obtain the demographics of traders that were given licences to trade. It would be useful to know who was benefiting from the offers made by the Council. The borough had a visiting French market that went through Muswell Hill but the Myddleton Road and Tottenham markets often had the same traders that traded in those markets. In some cases, it was unclear how newcomers would establish themselves.

·      Street trading was anything that took place on the public highway. If it was in an enclosed area, it would not be covered by the fees and charges regime. The £175.00 initial fee was arrived at as it covered the current cost to Licensing. Road closures would need to be applied for separately, but road closures were often classified as a ‘street party’ which did not have a fee.

·      Some Tottenham markets were never busy and were expensive. If new people did not become involved then the markets would lose popularity. It may be possible to have a phased approach to increase popularity year on year. 

·      Haringey was the only borough amongst its neighbouring boroughs which was not a market borough. Neighbouring boroughs had lively markets which were already financed because it was part of the corporate spend on markets. This circumstance was not shared by Haringey. The Council only recently started to consider markets in a more significant way and were looking to learn from neighbouring boroughs. The only location that had planning permission as a market in the borough was Tottenham Green. There had been concern that the neighbouring boroughs which had charter rights for their markets would be able to require the Council to pay them if the borough operated a market when another market in a neighbouring borough was operating at the same time, but the National Association of Markets had advised that if the Council continued to operate its markets under the London Local Authorities Act (1990) and license each individual trader, the Council would not then be impinging on the market rights for the neighbouring boroughs. Therefore, other boroughs would not be able to levy a charge against the Council if it decided to run a market concurrently with another neighbouring borough.

·      The Council had a Street Trading Policy in place which had been in place for a long time and was being revised. Aspects regarding markets would be included, but the consultation regarding residents’ expectations of markets would be taken into consideration whilst the policy was revised.

·      Massage and Special Treatment businesses had to be renewed by the 31 September each year so this was when they would pay the increased fee for their next licence which they would have to apply for. Operations in this category were seeing an increase in businesses which determined that they would employ people individually as their own sole trader. The trader would sign up to an affiliated body and in doing so, they would not subsequently pay the fee. Budgets were going down on Massage and Special Treatment premises. Legislation stated that if an individual had signed up to an affiliated body or a recognised body, then a fee could not be assigned to the premises. Bodies that were considered recognised were around 20 in number. There was some concern regarding potential modern slavery or criminal activity when it came to people being employed in such businesses and the Council needed to consider this. 

·      Section 7.1 of the report stated that guidance would be developed for street traders. Street trading conditions had already been prepared and would be submitted to a future Licensing Committee. Licensed street traders needed to comply with whatever changes came into place, including regulations involving single use plastics. 

RESOLVED:

1. That the licencing committee approve fees set out in appendix 1 of the report including:

i)    An increase of 7% on existing discretionary fees for 2024 - 25

ii)   ii) The introduction of a new Market operator licence application fee as set out in section 5.7 of the report.

2. Note Licencing Act and Gambling Act premises were already set at statutory maximums and made up a significant proportion of the fees collected.

3. That Pavement licence fees would be presented in a separate report following the Levelling up Act receiving royal assent in October 2023. Fees would be stipulated in the Act. At the time of writing the report, the Government had not released any regulations or guidance on the new regime. The temporary Pavement licence provisions remained in place under the Business and Planning Act 2020 (as amended).