Transcript

[ Silence ]

-- licensing committee. I now need to make a number of statutory announcements. Those present at this meeting should be aware that by law it can be recorded by anyone attending. Therefore, the meeting can be filmed, audio recorded, photographed or reported electronically by the use of social media. Anyone recording must cease as soon as the meeting is declared closed. To confirm, this council meeting is being live streamed. Therefore, anyone present should be aware that they're being recorded and broadcast via the internet. For this meeting, should a vote be required, we will do so by raising our hands. On to the agenda. We have received-- sorry, item 1, apologies and substitution of members. We have received apologies from Councillor Quinton and Councillor Bonfante will be substituting for her. We also have an-- sorry, we do not have an apology from Roderick-- Roderick-- Councillor Drake. He's here. Yes. Item 2, minutes. Can I invite members to agree the minutes of the meeting held on the 26th of February, 2024? Agreed. Thank you. Agreed. Item 3, notification of urgent business to be considered under item 6. Could I ask members to raise any urgent business to be considered under agenda item 6 if they have any? No. No urgent business. Thank you. Item 4, declarations of interest by members. Could I ask members to make any declaration of interest in relation to items on the agenda? No. No declarations of interest. Thank you. I'll now hand over to Sue McDade to give an overview about the purpose of this committee. Thank you, sir. Thank you, chair. Thank you. So, I'll just give a very brief introduction to the purpose of the licensing committee. Some members may well be new to this committee, so it's just a quick run-through about what its purpose is and how it conducts its business. So, the licensing committee is a statutory committee in that it is laid down in legislation, mostly the Licensing Act and the Gambling Act, that there needs to be a committee in each council to hear certain applications in relation to those acts and actually other licenses as well. The licensing committee is a cross-party political representation, so there are reps from each of the political parties, and though the chair and vice chair is decided and selected and approved through the annual council meeting, as many other committees are. The licensing committee itself has a pool of about 10 to 15 members. Actually, this year it's going to be 12, and that's laid out in the annual committee report for full council that took place in May. And as with many of our committees, it operates in line with the constitution. It's all laid out in the council's constitution. So, the licensing committee considers some applications that come to it, but predominantly it deals with considering and reviewing policies and makes recommendations on whether to approve those policies or not to cabinet and then ultimately to full council also. So, the sorts of things that will come to licensing committee are the review and recommendation and approval of the Gambling Act, which we will hear tonight, because that's the substantive item. Also, the Licensing Act, and we met fairly recently to talk through the Licensing Act, and that will be coming back to licensing committee because it's been through a public consultation. It will be coming back to the next committee for review of that following consultation. But the licensing committee also will look at approval of other policies, such as the street-hating policy and hackney carriage policy, and also consider some applications for other licences like hackney carriages, private hire, particularly where there's an objection. It will usually come to licensing committee, and the meetings are scheduled for roughly every two months. But also, the licensing committee has delegated some of its decision-making to the alcohol and regulated entertainment licensing subcommittee. That's a long title. But basically, that pools... For each licensed subcommittee meeting that's needed, it pools three members from that pool of 12 that we've got to sit on each of those licensing subcommittees, and they're basically convened as needed. So, they're predominantly to hear applications in relation to the Licensing Act or Gambling Act, and that may well be reviews of licences where they're called in by the police or environmental health, for example. It can deal with temporary event notices where there's been objections that have not been withdrawn, and it can also be about premises licences where there's been objections, and we've seen a number of those over the last year. So, that's a very quick run-through of the purpose of the licensing committee. -Thank you, Sue. On to item 5, which is the Gambling Act policy. Can I hand over to Kate Payne to introduce and take us through the policy? -Thank you, Chair. So, good evening, councillors. The Gambling Act requires all licensing authorities to prepare and publish a statement of the principles that they propose to apply in exercising their functions under the Gambling Act during each three-year period. And the next period is January 2025 until January 2028, in this case. The statement must be produced following consultation, and that consultation is deliberately wide to enable licensing authorities to consult with anyone who may be affected or otherwise have an interest in the Licensing Authority Statement of Policy. The list of those we intend to consult with is Appendix B of the report, but we will also invite people to pass the details on to anyone else who may be interested. The policy has been reviewed and updated to reflect changes made to the Gambling Commission's guidance to licensing authorities. This was last published in April 2021 and updated again in April 2023. There is a white paper due at some point, but as the policy can be reviewed at any time during its lifetime, if there's any major changes come to light after this update to the policy, we can look at it again. So the changes made to the current policy include additions, amendments, and items removed from the updated guidance, and they're all shown in red text in the draft policy. Some of the items in the guidance are not necessary to have in our policy because it's not a local policy. It is just to do with applications, and so they're not necessarily included. The Welland Hatfield Statement of Licensing Policy aims to set out in general terms what policy decisions the Council has taken to achieve the Gambling Act objectives, and the policy sets out the matters that operators are expected to take into account when producing their risk assessments. In addition, we've also produced a local area profile, and that sets out local risks as map overlays in a GIS format, and this includes the position of banks, cash points, schools, et cetera, and the maps are also reproduced as appendices to the local area profile, and it's a standalone document to be read alongside the gambling statement, but it does not have to be consulted upon in the same way. It's been produced to assist applicants wishing to cite the gambling premises, and we've updated these maps ready for the current consultation. So once adopted, the Statement of Policy will form part of the decision-making process for Council members and officers when they're determining applications for premises licenses in respect of casinos, bingo betting, adult gaming centres, and family entertainment centres. The Statement of Policy will also be used by the courts should they be asked to consider an appeal against the committee decision. The Statement of Policy follows a prescribed statutory format and will incorporate views from the consultation exercise. So if agreed, the consultation will run from Monday, the 24th of June to Friday, the 13th of September to give the recommended 12-week consultation period. Then any proposed changes would then be brought back to this committee for approval. So we would ask members to consider and approve the Wellington Hatfield Council statement, our Statement of Licensing Policy, and release it for consultation. Thank you. -Thank you very much, Kate. Could I invite members to ask any questions or give any comments, please? Yes, Leo. -Why do I use this? -Just press that, okay. Hi. The question is about these subcommittees. I think there are 12 members of this committee, and I think three of us go on each of the subcommittees. How is that selection made? -That's a good question. So I think it tends to be in a kind of a rota basis, so to give an opportunity for people to have a chance at attending, but also clearly due to availability. So if a member is on holiday, then they might be asked the following time. So I think it's trying to rotate so that people, all members, have an opportunity at some point to be on the committee, subcommittee. -Thank you. -But they're often in the afternoon. -Yes, so they're often daytime, yes, rather than the evening, mostly due to availability of the licensed trade and council to attend the meetings, yeah. -Thank you. Any other questions or comments? No? Okay, thank you. Can I ask members to approve the policy to go out for public consultation? Thank you. I think that's unanimous. Right, on to item six, which is urgent business. We do not have any. So I think that concludes the meeting for tonight. (audience murmuring) (laughing)