Transcript

I'm going for the triple tonight. It's my third licensing committee. Good evening everybody. Hello there. Good evening and welcome to this meeting of the Licensing Committee. This meeting is being webcast and some officers may be accessing virtually so please bear with us if we experience any technical difficulties. My name is Councillor McLeod. I'm the chair of the Licensing Committee. Members of the committee, I will now call your names in alphabetical order. Please switch on your microphone and confirm your attendance. Councillor Burchall. Good evening. Councillor Davies. Good evening. Councillor French. Good evening. Councillor Justin. Yes, good evening. And Councillor Varatharaj. Excuse me, sorry, similar. So I've already received apologies from Councillors Brooks, Marshall, Mayorkas and Tiller. Members are reminded to ensure your microphones are turned off unless you're speaking. And Councillor Sweet is on his way. Thank you. When you're called to speak and every time you do, please state your name. Please bear in mind the committee must remain core at all times and that you should remain present throughout the item under discussion in order to legitimately vote on the item unless you have a conflict of interest with the item. We have a number of officers present who will introduce themselves when they address the committee. So first item is the minutes from the last committee meeting held on 12 March 2024. I assume you've all had a chance to look over them. I just want members to confirm that the notes are in order and that they're noted, basically. Thank you. Okay, so are there any declarations of either pecuniary or pecuniary, other registrable or non-registrable interests? Please declare any interest quotes in the item they relate to. Thank you very much, everybody. Okay, Agenda Item 3, the yearly review of the Council's Statement of Licensing Policy. This is going to be presented by our officer Caroline Sharkey. Thank you, Chair, and as you said, to introduce myself, I'm the Licensing Manager. I'm wary that the members have read this report, so I'm just going to give you the summary of the report that you've got in front of you. So this is a Statement of Gambling Policy and Principles. We are required, Chair, under Section 349 of the Gambling Act to review our policy every three years, and this policy, the next successful period for it will be 31st of January next year, but the policy needs to be adopted by the 31st of December. We are required by law to publicise the draft policy four weeks before it comes into force. Section 261 of the report, Chair, which is on pages 13 to 62, sets out the draft policy for the next three years, starting from 2025 to 2028. We are not proposing to make any substantial changes to the full statement, but we have had the opportunity to make some minor amendments to it, Chair, and also some additional information, some minor sections that we have added in, and these are detailed in the committee report under paragraph 3.6 on pages 7 to 8 of the agenda. In terms of continuation with a no-casino policy, there's not been any significant changes in the Barrow, Chair, and therefore we are asking members tonight to consider the continuation of a no-casino policy in the Barrow. So the report, Chair, is asking for members to approve the draft statement of principles and policy under the Gambling Act as set up in Appendix 1, and also to approve to consult on the reinstating of the no-casino policy as required under Section 166 of the Gambling Act. That is the summary of the report. I'm happy to answer any questions at this stage, Chair, or any points of clarification. Thank you. Thank you very much. That's appreciated. Does anyone from the committee have any questions for Ms Sharkey? No? And neither do I. So can we accept the draft proposal? Agreed. Thank you very much. Thank you. And so now moving on to Item 4, which is the proposed Communicative Impact Assessment. You and me both. Again, over to our Licensing Manager. Just on mute there. Thank you, Chair. Again, I don't propose to go through all the report with you. I'll just give you the summary of the report and pertinent points for members to consider. So a Communicative Impact Assessment was introduced under Section 5 of the Licensing Act by virtue of Section 141 of the Policing and Crime Act

1. The Act sets out what the licensing authority must do to introduce a cumulative impact policy, and also the guidance sets out some information that the local authority has to collect before any cumulative impact is set up. And the cumulative impact policy once adopted must be reviewed every three years. As I've set up in my report, Chair, cumulative impact really refers to the undermining of the licensing objective due to a number of premises located in one area. The cumulative impact may be caused despite the best effort of responsible license orders, but it's just because it's a combined effect of multiple premises in close proximity, and overall, the impact on having an adverse impact on the licensing objectives. At its meeting on the 25th of October last year, the committee may recall that they agreed to a cumulative impact assessment to be carried out within the Barra. This was also reflected in the revised statement of licensing policy under paragraph 10.1, which was approved by the full Council on 22nd of May this year. As I've stated earlier, Chair, the guidance, the statutory guidance, provide a list of information that local authority has to take into consideration before a cumulative impact is introduced. This information is listed under paragraph 3.2 of the report, which is on page 66 of the agenda. The committee is also asked tonight to take into consideration the Council's ambitions of the night-time strategy, which was implemented last year, and also to take into consideration the exceptions that we've listed if a cumulative impact policy was to be implemented in the Barrow for the committee to consider paragraph 4, which is on pages 6 to 68 of the agenda. So we are asking members tonight to consider the report and to approve the data streams that we have proposed in the report and also to approve the exceptions, taking into consideration the night-time strategy. And that is the report, Chair. I'm happy to answer any points at this stage or any points of clarification. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay, so back over to the committee. And hello, Councillor, welcome. Do you have a question as well? Yes, over to you. Thank you, Chairman. Firstly, apologies for lateness. It's the thunderstorm outside and I was stuck around the corner, but good to be here. I saw a couple of points in the paper where it refers to Merton rather than Wandsworth on page 20 and page 42. I assume those are just errors, but it would be good to just understand what the relationship is with Merton. I assume there's been some kind of discussion between offices, but just to understand, you know, where that's come from, what we're learning from Merton, those kinds of things. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor. And I'm assuming you mean the gambling policy. Those are the errors. Yes. I do apologize for that. We do provide services to Merton as well and Richmond. So in terms of the gambling policy in its principle, we have looked at each council and we have made similar changes which don't have an effect on the virus structure. It's just the way we would discharge the functions under the gambling policy for all gambling operators in the through virus. So that's a mistake on my part. I do apologize. I'll change that to Wandsworth. Great. Thanks. Thank you, Councillor Bertrand. Thank you. The night time strategy. Have we got access to what the night time strategy now is? Yes, Councillor, that is on the website on the council with Wandsworth Council website. So I'm happy to send that through democratic services so we can we can email you the link for that. So you can have a look at the document. Thank you very much. There's a link on the website. I'm sorry. In the report, a paragraph 4.1, I think. As well. Yeah. Because we sort of need to be looking at the whole thing as a whole, don't we? You know, where are our night time hubs going to be and where we are going to have slightly quieter areas, maybe, you know, residential areas. So, yeah, I'll need to look at that. Thank you so much. You're welcome. And just to clarify on that, Councillor, is when we produce the report, you will be able to see from the data streams that we're going to put before you in October. You will see the areas where the information on crime data and social be a combination of effect, which will give you some intelligence that those areas may need a cumulative impact policy. And then you make a decision. So it's not all the areas within the barrier, but intelligence that will collect and put before you will give you an informed hopefully for you to make an informed decision. Which part of the barrier you would think they would benefit from a cumulative impact policy. Thank you. Because you know, if we are getting an application for I mean, I'm thinking of the premises licensing rather than gambling. But it would be good to know if when a when an application comes to us that it is within one of those areas or not to be getting it when we get the application to help us with our decision making. Yeah, you're absolutely right. And through you, that is how it would work. If a cumulative impact policy was implemented and you have an application come before you, you would have to scrutinize that application whether it would add impact to the area if a license were to be granted. And it will be ultimately the license or the applicant or has to convince you that their operating model would not add any impact. So you will have that, that the policy of a cumulative impact within the combined with the licensing policy for you to make that decision. Thank you. And yeah, that's that's that's how I understood it. This is an extra tool for us to, you know, to be able to use it when needed. Councillor. Thank you, Councillor Humphries. I just wanted to be clear what it is we're actually deciding tonight, just for clarity, really, than anything else for anybody else who might be listening. So we're not making a decision on whether we're going to have this or not. All we're deciding tonight or we're authorizing tonight is for the data stream gathering and the evidence gathering to take place. And then I wouldn't want people to think that we're de facto saying we are going to have fun. All we're approving tonight is the evidence gathering to look at in the future to make a decision whether we are going to have one or not. That's correct, isn't it? That is correct, Councillor. And again, through you, Chair, as I stated out in my report, we will go away, gather the evidence for each ward within the borough and we will be able to collect information that we've listed in the report and then we will put it before you. We might probably through looking at the data sets, we might probably come up with an area, but ultimately it will be up to the committee to make that final decision at the next meeting in October. And then if the committee decided to go for a cumulative impact policy within a particular area within the borough, it will still have to go out to public consultation and the consultation will be three. We, you know, will take three months and then we'll have to come back again to report the result of that confirmation. So you're absolutely right. You're not making a decision tonight. You're just approving what with the data streams that we've put forward and the exceptions, whether these can, we can go away and collect that information for the committee. Thanks, Ms Sharkey. We've just come back again, Chair. And again, you alluded to it there as well, but again, just, just, I know you've written all the report and thank you for all the hard work that's gone into it, but just, just again, for people who might not be so afraid with how it all works, we have the option at this stage of whether we do it borough wide or again, specifically zoning particular areas. So we could be very specific about where this is and it could be as, as big or as small as we like in different areas. There's no kind of like all or nothing kind of approach. We have the flexibility to do whatever we think is appropriate depending on that evidence base that you're gathering. That's right, isn't it? Yeah, that is absolutely correct. So you've, you will have the committee at the next meeting in, in October when we present the data to you, you will be able to decide whether you want a cumulative impact policy within a specific ward or an area within the ward. And then you'll be able to decide whether you want it to have all the on and off premises such as pubs, or you would like to just have the cumulative impact policy to late night refreshments or off licenses or, or three categories of premises licenses. So you, the committee in October will be able to make that decision. And once that decision is made, that's when we would then instigate a public consultation. Great, thank you. That's, that's really helpful. One last thing if I may, chair, sorry. And I don't know if again, apologies if this isn't in the report, if it was, I missed it, but is there going to be an opportunity at some stage in this data gathering exercise for all ward councillors to contribute something? Because I think we all know in our own patches places that we might have some useful information about hotspots and things like that, which is, again, something really useful to feed into, into your data gathering thing before we get to the stage of making a decision. Because often we're conduits for either whether it's, you know, emails and casework and stuff and things like that, but we do all know our patches quite well. And it might be useful for you to have that as an extra bit of data input to the process before we get to the final stage. Yeah, absolutely, Councillor, and through you, chair, there will be some particular key interest groups that we will be looking at and the ward councillors will be one of the key interest groups. We'll be looking at the police data and speaking to the local SNTs in terms of what local information and intelligence they have. So all that will then be collected and then we'll present it to you. In addition to other public data from like, for example, the ambulance data in terms of incidents, call out to particular areas within the ward. So yes, all that information will be presented to you at the meeting in October. Thanks very much. Councillor Sweet. Councillor Humphries has asked my question. Incredibly efficient. Thank you. Any more questions from the committee on this? Looking around, no. In that case, can I ask if this item is approved? Thank you. Oh, okay. And that concludes the business of the committee. Thank you for your attendance. We shall now pause before a regulatory licensee committee. Thank you.