Transcript

David? David? Yes? I'm actually, I'm pretty sitting in the laundry room, so I might actually go off video. Right. I think I'm surrounded by laundry drying and everything, so. You might go off video. The house is full, there's somebody in every room. Well, my house is exactly the same. Every, we've got nine people staying here at the moment, so. Wow. Whole family. You're going to turn off video anyway. Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you very much. I think people have had a chance now to log on and join, so good morning, a happy new year, and thank you everyone for joining this meeting in public of the Licensing Subcommittee C. So I hope everyone is settled. So we are live streaming, so that people can watch as it's a meeting in public. So can I ask everyone, please, to keep your microphones muted until it's your turn to speak. If you wish to speak. If you wish to speak at another point, please, could you raise your, use the raise hand facility so I can see you. So my name is Councillor David Gardner. I'm chair of this subcommittee, and will be chairing the hearing this morning. Also on the subcommittee, also on the subcommittee, our councillors, Linda Byrd, and Dave Sullivan. We also have our legal advisor, Felix, and we have the clerk to the meeting, Daniel Wilkinson. So welcome to both the applicants who have made the applications, and to those members of the public that have made representations about those applications. So we've, we've got two substantive applications this morning to consider, one of those in relation to Westmount Road in Eltham, for an off licence, and one in relation to the borough halls for entertainment and licence. Okay, so we go now formally through the agenda. So item one, I have received no apologies for absence, all members present. Item two, I've not been notified of any urgent businesses, business. Item three, can I just ask if any member has any interest to declare? Linda. Linda, you've answered. Yes, sorry, I was just doing my microphone. Yes, chair, the Westmount Road application is actually in my ward, so I need to say that. Thank you. Yeah, that's not a prohibitive factor at all. It gives you more insight and knowledge. Thank you. Item four, then, we've got minutes from the previous meeting. Thank you. They have been circulated. Are members happy to agree them? Agreed? Thank you very much. So we now then move to agree. Thank you, Dave. So those being agreed, I will need to sign them at Difficult Online. So we now move on to the substantive items without further ado. I just want to check here who we've got. We should have Jill Sherratt, who is the agent of the applicant. I can see you, Jill. Hello. Good morning. I've also got Rasu Sabasan, who is the applicant. Rasu, I can see you. Two of you. And we've got three members of the public making representations. I've got a Miss Sapna Patel. I'm just going through my screen. I can't see Sapna Patel. I don't think she's present, Chair. No, thank you. John Ratcliffe. I can see Mr Ratcliffe. Yes, present, Chair. Morning. Thank you. And a Valerie Spargo. Thank you. Thank you. I can't see, I can't see Valerie. I believe she is present. Yes, I can, I can see you, Valerie. Valerie, are you wishing to speak on this item? Well, we can come back to that. We know that she's there. Okay. Can I just confirm that all the parties have received a link to the gender pack? Yep. Good. Right. Can I draw everyone's attention? This will apply to the next item as well. We have a 15-minute time limit, which is set down in the policy. That's 15 minutes for the applicant and 15 minutes for representations. So can I ask those making representations to keep the points made in their written representation and all issues raised should be relevant to the licensing objectives and not to repeat anything else anyone else has said. So can I ask them to give an outline summary of the report to the applicant and the applicant and members of the public, can I ask Gemma Devine, as a licensing officer, to give an outline summary of the report? Gemma. The licensing subcommittee is requested to consider the grant of a premises licence in relation to Westermount Corner, known in the application form as Eltham Food and Wine. But the location is 112 Westermount Road, Eltham. The report begins on page 37 of the pack and a copy of the application and the premises plans are located in Appendix A. This application requests the supply of alcohol for off-sales only, with matching opening hours of Monday to Saturday from 7am to 11pm and Sunday from 8am to 10pm. Following discussions between the police, the applicant and their agent, there are 19 conditions agreed to be included on this premises licence and a copy of these, as made enforceable by the licensing authority, are located starting at the bottom of page 38 and continuing to page 41. The agreement is reflected in Appendix B. There is no current premises licence at this location. It has previously been a salon before becoming vacant and was redeveloped during 2024 to become a corner shop, which now seeks an off-sales permission. The premises are located on Westermount Road in Eltham, halfway along an approximately 275 metre strip of commercial premises, which serve the local resident community. The premises is not located in the Eltham Cumulative Impact Zone or the Eltham Town Centre Public Spaces Protection Order. There are maps of the area located at Appendix C. Other comparable licence premises in the immediate vicinity are noted on page 43 of the pack, and a summary of the three resident representations, including the one petition that was submitted, which all relate primarily to public nuisance, is located on page 44, with full copies found in Appendix D of the panel's report. I shall now show a slide deck of photographs taken at the premises. This is an aerial view showing the location of the premises along Westermount Road. The premises is highlighted by a red box. These are the immediate shops surrounding. You can see the premises on the corner. This is the frontage of the premises. You'll see now it's called Westermount Corner. This is towards the frontage from the opposite side of Westermount Road. This is a view of the frontage of the premises facing northbound along Westermount Road. Southbound. And the frontage of the premises facing eastbound along Elton Park Gardens. This is from the frontage of the premises facing northbound. And facing westbound along Dunvegan Road. These are the internal views of the premises. And pictures of the blue notice advertising the application during the reservation and consultation period. Consultation was adhered to. And those are our contact details if you need us. Happy to take any questions, Chair. Thank you. Thank you very much, Gemma. Are there any questions from members of the panel, from Linda or Dave? No? Okay. And I don't have any questions either. So, then if we can move on to the applicant. Jill, are you going to speak to the application first? And obviously, you'd have seen the pack. You'd have seen some of the representations. And hopefully be able to comment on the points made there. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Chair. Yeah, I'm fully prepared. I'll hopefully not keep you long. I'll just give you the information that is relevant in terms of your assessment of this application. So, hello. We've been brought in at the point of this hearing. We weren't, my company's licensing matters, we weren't responsible for the submission of the application. The applicant did that themselves. So, you have here today the applicants, Mr Rasu Sabison and his son is also here, Mathus and Sabison, who I've been dealing with. And you've got the hours for the alcohol sales and opening, which match, which is quite right. They're nothing unusual in this area. Mr Sabison has extensive experience of working in the convenience store sector, at least 20 years. He worked in a laundry store in Deptford for 10 years. And then he moved to the Londis that is a couple of doors down, Sapna Patel, the lady who's sorted out the petition. He was her manager for 10 years. And under his management at both premises, there's no problem. There'd be no problems whatsoever at either shop. No failed test purchases, no complaints. There's nothing at all negative in terms of the licensing objective, something that you obviously will be able to draw on. He, in terms of his personal reasons, because obviously the main issue for the people who've raised representations is the number of outlets selling alcohol. Well, that isn't a consideration for you today. As you know, that comes down to competition, something that sorts itself out commercially. But Mr Sabison has such a fantastic relationship with the local people. He's worked for other people for so long that his end goal was always to have his own shop. And this shop that you are you're looking at is at the end of the row on the junction and it's been closed for 10 years. And he was he was assisted by the people who live above it to contact the landlord because he feels that he can provide a different, more community feel to his business. It will be a convenience store. So same kind of products. I won't go into that. You know what a convenience store is where he can bring some differentiation. Is that there's no cash machine. People have to walk for around about 15 minutes. So he's going to apply for a cash machine and he's going to be getting lottery and things like that. So we will do what all convenience stores do. But he believes that he is going to do that well because of the all read the respect that he has from local people and the contacts. So you've heard that the store was closed and derelict effectively for around about 10 years. He's he's Mr Samson spent around 60,000 pounds of his own savings, bringing it back to life as a new community resource. And you've heard that it's not within any of your areas, community impact zone or the public spaces protection order. In terms of things you might want to know about, not strictly relevant traffic and things like that. But the beauty of this premises, unlike the other premises, is on the corner. So on the side, the deliveries come in the side. Mr Samson won't be part of any of the symbol groups along this cost. He is trading independently, so he will go out and do his own deliveries. He has a full delivery bay at the side. There are the space for parking down the side where there's no double yellow lines and he will bring his goods in at the side of the building. In terms of the licensing objectives in the more crucial elements that you will want to know about, there's brand new modern CCTV. You can imagine with that amount of investment comes all the modern equipment that you would you would expect. So you have a CCTV with no less than I think about eight conditions formalising the quality of that system. He has till prompts. So it's an EPOS till system, all modern, which has the till prompts so that if anybody comes along, they think that they're under 25. The till prompts assist them with the policy and how to deal with all of that. Obviously, it's all you've seen the photographs and I'm grateful for those because you can see that it's a brand new, brightly lit and modern premises. So alcohol usually forms around about 10 to 15 percent of the total offering of the goods. In terms of staffing, something that's important to consider, it's a family business. So Mr. Sabison, as he has done up the longest a few doors down, will be working probably seven days a week, but certainly full time. He's mainly responsible, but he has his son, Methusen, who will be helping out, his daughter and his wife. So Mr. Sabison and his wife both hold personal licences. And then they've already employed one part time member of staff. They'll have to see how things pan out, but they probably will be employing other local people. And they've had families come in giving CVs for their daughters and sons to stack shelves and things like that. So they will be employing people locally. In terms of training, which is the crucial part of things when it comes to selling alcohol, they are purchasing membership of an e-learning staff training system, which everything is remote and the staff have to be trained before they can make sales of alcohol. But then the system automatically issues refreshers. It has tests. There's notification if people don't do so well. It's an amazing system. And they will be subscribing to that and making sure that they comply with the condition relating to training. And I can answer any questions on that, should you have them, because it's our system that they are subscribing to. So that's the application. That's the person behind the application who couldn't be any more experienced and has a flawless track record. You have a premises with all of the correct policies and procedures in place and equipment. And those, as I've already basically referred to, have been backed up by the very robust conditions that have been agreed with the police. 19 conditions in total. They cover everything from obviously staff training, CCTV, but you've got the high strength alcohol won't be sold. Just let me try and find the conditions. Here they are just quickly. I'm not going to go through them. You've seen them. ABV, there's a litter condition, regular daily checks. There's also the welfare and the vulnerability training. So they're extremely comprehensive. If you do, I did, when I did get involved, I noticed that there were two conditions on there that I knew would be breached. They were completely horrendous to try and comply with. And I went to the police officer and said, look, can we leave these off? They didn't realise the gravity of them. That is that two people will be on site at all times. That just cannot happen. There will only be one person opening up in the morning. And if deliveries are being sorted out, there'll be one person. Most of the time, there'll be two people. But there will be occasions where only one person will be there. It's quite standard. So the condition would have been breached immediately. And the other one is that a personal licence holder will be on site at all times. Well, well known across the industry how difficult that is to comply with for small businesses who don't have a glut of, you know, hundreds of employees. And so while there are two personal licence holders, there will be occasions where there isn't a personal licence holder necessarily there. And that is covered with the comprehensive training condition anyway. So they didn't need that, again, as a condition. And the police officer was more than happy to agree that those conditions didn't apply. So but if you want to ask anything more about that, I'm more than happy to. That's the application. In terms of the representations, Sapna Patel is the owner of the Londis a few doors down. She has had the petition behind the till and has had a conversation with her trusted customers, telling them how awful this is all going to be before they signed it. I would ask you to give it the appropriate weight. Mr. Sverson has run her premises for her for 10 years without problems in a perfectly responsible way. So I'm not really sure how claims can be made that all of a sudden this premises won't be running exactly the same way. You hear from John Radcliffe about the quiet and peaceful environment. And that tells you something. It tells you that there are no problems. And the fact that you've got a good retailer here, good retailers don't make things worse. They make things better because he's turned derelict, quiet, often a focus for antisocial behavior, quiet, empty premises. And he's now changed that into something that he'd be constantly manned, brightly lit, responsible people. So it in fact upholds the licensing objectives rather than undermines them. So I won't say any more about the representations. You've three people who are making them. And I will make some comments if there's anything to say later. So that's the application, councillors. I don't think I've got anything else to say at this point. Can I just clarify that I do get some time to make a few comments at the end? You do, yeah. There is an opportunity for a summary. Well, there is an opportunity for a discussion if we feel that's necessary. Obviously, I generally would come back. Yeah, generally I would, if points have been made by public representatives, then I will allow, obviously, the applicant to come back and respond to those points. Thank you, Chad. Well, that's the application. It's perfectly robust and in line with all the expectations that you will have. And I would ask you to grant it. Thank you. Before we move on to questions from members, Mr. Sabasan, do you have anything you wanted to add to what your agent has said? Not at the moment. Jill's covered absolutely everything. Lovely. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay. Are there questions from Linda or Dave? Linda. Yeah. Thank you, Chair. And thank you, Jill, for the presentation. Obviously, as a ward councillor, I've got a vested interest in what goes on down in the ward. And I don't think this is a question about conditions or licensing. I'm just bemused as to why we've got four identical shops opening and where the research has gone into. That parade of shops actually is saturated with convenience stores for the size of the parade of shops. And I'm just... I'm not sure that's... No, it's not. It's a question of... It's not quite a matter in terms of licensing objectives. Thanks, Chair. It's more of a commercial consideration, which isn't really a matter for this panel. Okay. Thank you. Sorry about that. Dave, did you have any questions? No? I do know the premises very well, because I used to live just round the corner. So I've experienced shopping on that parade. And I've experienced that shop being semi-derelict for the last 10 years. So I have no questions. Right. So my only question relates actually to the hours. Now, if I go to my big local co-op, on a Sunday they can't sell alcohol till nine. I think other days it's eight. But you want seven o'clock Monday to Saturday, eight o'clock on Sunday. I just wondered whether you really need those early morning sales. Yeah, I mean, yes. It always gets asked us this. And the bottom line is that they might not make any sales when they open the doors in the morning. They don't expect it to be busy with alcohol sales. But by not allowing them, if they want to open, they can. And if by not allowing alcohol sales, it actually creates problems. Because what they then have to do is cover up all of their alcohol. Otherwise, they commit a criminal offence. And that's why it's written into the guidance that they should be allowed to sell alcohol or at least have it available for the amount of time that they are open, because it is counterproductive to do anything else. Whether they feel that they're going to earn money, whether it be alcohol or any other, is a matter for them. They commercially feel that they can and will. And so that's a matter for them. The Lundis has 7 till 11. So the hours that are being applied for here are in no way extensive at all. And obviously, you have to take this case on its own merits, regardless even of what the Lundis has. Mr. Saberson feels that he wants those hours. So thank you. Right. Thank you. And I presume, Jill, you had no further points on Linda's question. Because I think you... Well, only my own general observations. I understand completely where she's coming from. Completely. It seems bizarre. But, you know, we're dealing with the licensing legislation. And these days, in the absence of a policy, you can have 10, 20 selling alcohol. That's just the way it is. And we do have... Whether we think it's right or not. Yeah, we do have a number of cumulative impact zones. Yes, you do. But this isn't within one. No, that's right. So it's not a consideration today. Thank you. So if that concludes questions to the applicant, we move along to the members of the public. John, I can see you there. Would you like to give your verbal representation, please? Obviously, based on your written representation. Thank you very much, Chair, and good morning, members. My name is John Ratcliffe. I'm a resident in Earshore Road. I've lived in Eltham since 1976 and in Earshore Road since 1987. I see myself as a bit of a representative here of the community. I'm not part of any petition which might have been got together. I take residency sometimes in the Long Pond next door and various people come to me and see me as a means of putting forward views of the local community. I'm an ex-head teacher, head teacher education in Lewisham for 33 years and ended up as head teacher in Lewisham. And I also was chair of governors at the Gordon School under the Cass Farah years. And so I know many, many people within the local community and people come to me on various issues. I'm not going to talk this morning, Chair, about the change which has come about in the original application. You have the expertise to look into that, and I leave that with the committee to decide whether it is a safe operation with the changes which have been made. What I want to talk about this morning is about safety and changes within the community which have taken place successfully, led by the Council. At present, there are a parade of eight premises in the top half of West Mountain Road. Five at the moment sell alcohol. Out of those five, three are within the old Corbett estate regime, which of course originally banned the sale of alcohol for many premises. And two are on rail board property, which is under different consideration. The premises next door to the convenience store, 110, has very strict licensing sales put around it. The Long Pond and the Council moved to put that premises in place with those strict restrictions. And I have to say a very successful move reflecting what the local community needed. And I commend the members for making that decision. With the addition of a further off-licence in this small parade of shops, I think there is a real danger, or we believe there's a real danger, in increasing disorder within the immediate area along with greater public nuisance. The area around West Mountain Road was created by Archibald Colbert, restricting the sale of alcohol from any premises. Time has now moved on, on reflecting the needs of the 21st century, and the councillors ruled allowing for the sale of alcohol in given premises. In doing so, Chair, with this in mind, the responsibility of members on their watch has been to reflect the local community and to synthesise the changes which had taken place to produce a different environment to provide for the local community in the licensing which has been granted. Originally, there was only one off-licence in this area, and that was on the railway board before it closed down. We believe at the moment, in time, granting a licence would be a move that would not be in keeping with what the local community require. This has gone far enough, with the area being more than well served with this designated activity, i.e. licensing, and in doing so, allowing yet another alcohol premise, it was seriously put in jeopardy the quiet and peaceful environment we have worked together to provide. On these grounds, we object to this application. Thank you, Chair. Well, thank you very much, Mr Radcliffe. I think we've met before many years ago. I think so, yes. On a number of issues. It's good to hear you. I think you'll be aware, obviously, that as a panel, we have to follow the relevant legislation and, indeed, our own licensing policy. But we very much hear what you have to say. Now, we also had... So, should I ask whether Linda or Councillor Byrd or Sullivan have any questions to Mr Radcliffe? No? Well, thank you very much for your time. So, we also had with us Valerie. Just to see whether she's still there. Oh, hello, Valerie. Valerie, did you want to say a few words in relation to your written representation? Do you want to add a few things? Yes, I would. Thank you. I'm not representing anybody except somebody who lives in Elton Park Gardens. And I've lived there since 82. So, I, too, have a long view. And, of course, things change. And although I am concerned about the things that John has mentioned and Linda, obviously, it's not relevant to the licensing application. So, what I would raise is something that I'm aware of regularly, which is the traffic at the corner of the junction with Elton Park Gardens, Westmount Road, and onwards to Dunvegan. I don't know whether you realise that on the corner there, there are double yellow lines, which are frequently flouted, not just by delivery drivers, but by private drivers. And, in fact, in the photograph that we were shown and had in our information packs, it actually shows cars parked there on the double yellow lines. And, well, OK, I can cope with cars being parked, but what frequently happens is they do three-point turns there because they don't want to drive down Elton Park Gardens and go around Greenvale. So, they do three-point turns. And although I accept that any bumps, crashes, et cetera, will, on the whole, be of a minor nature because they're not going fast, but you've got cars trying to turn in to the road, cars trying to exit the road, cars trying to come across from Dunvegan. And I think it's, frankly, and I think it's, frankly, very hazardous. Add another delivery van and more people stopping because they do stop to dive into the shops. Along Westmount Road, there's a limited amount of parking, but it's well used, and often you have cars waiting for other cars to exit. But on the corner of Elton Park Gardens, I think it's increasingly hazardous. So, I think, for me, the major thing is what it provides in extra traffic and people stopping quickly, rushing into a corner shop to make a purchase, and then doing a three-point turn as other people are exiting the road, and it's hazardous for children crossing the road. We have quite a number of schools and quite a number of youngsters and nursery school children crossing Elton Park Gardens in the morning and the afternoon. And, frankly, I think it's quite hazardous, and I think that's my main point. Thank you. Thank you very much, Valerie. I'm just looking at the Google image I've got on my other screen, and the double yellow lines sort of go back as far, almost as far as the end of the property, but not to sort of the garden area. So, I'll just, we'll ask, we'll ask the agent or the applicant to comment at the end on the point about parking and what they will do to ensure responsible parking, obviously, by their own vehicles and delivery vehicles, but also, obviously, as far as you can by customers, but that's very difficult. Obviously, that's a matter for, it's a wider matter in terms of parking enforcement and, obviously, highways and so forth. So, that clearly is a relevant point, but not relevant to the licensing application. But we'll ask, obviously, it's a fair point, and we'll ask Mr Savasan and Jill to comment at the end. Do Councillor Byrd or Sullivan have any questions for Ms Spargo? Linda? Yes, thank you, Chair. It's not actually a question, but it is actually to strengthen what Ms Spargo said. It's our job as local representative, elected local representatives, to keep people safe. And we have an issue with a lack of support for children getting to primary schools and children crossing the road. And adding a delivery truck down that road would be nothing short of chaos on some occasions. So, actually, I wanted to just voice my support for, although you say it's not part of the licensing conditions, it will cause our residents, my residents, considerable anxiety. And I am concerned about that, very concerned. So, I want that said. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay. Councillor Sullivan, any point? Yeah, just to say that I think previously those premises, it might even be the reason why it was derelict. I know that spot can be quite tricky, but if you follow the argument presented by Valerie, then there could be no use for those premises, and the premises would stay derelict forever. I mean, it wouldn't make any difference whether it was, I mean, we're actually talking about licensing here, but these seem to be arguments about any further use of those premises as a trading business. So, you know, those are my comments. I think it's right to say that the junction is actually quite tricky, and there are some concerns, but I don't think we can apply it in this case. Thank you. Well, I think that probably, you know, I think obviously, Valerie, we sympathise very much with the points you make. It's to what extent we can consider that. But I will ask the applicant, and Jill as the agent, in now coming to the end of this item, whether you've got any comments, whether there be an assurance any of your personal deliveries to the business would be done legitimately, and you wouldn't be using the yellow lines and so forth. And I appreciate you can't control customers. And to answer any other points that Mr Ratcliffe or Ms Fargo made in their representation. Thank you, Chair. Yeah, really briefly, I'll come to the traffic issue in a second. I'll just do it in chronological order. Mr Ratcliffe stated he sees himself as a representative of the community. Well, he needs written authority from people to speak on their behalf. He's here speaking on his own behalf only. He's not entitled to speak on behalf of other people without their say. So in terms of, he also mentioned about strict restrictions next door. Well, the beauty of this application, with it being new and modern, you've had the police involved, there will be very, very strict restrictions on this application, on this licence. There's no less than 19 conditions. I'm pretty, I could hazard a pretty educated guess that most of the other shops won't have that kind of restriction on them. So that should hopefully give comfort to people that this particular premises will not undermine the licensing objectives. In terms of the traffic, yes, I think it's already really been alluded to, while frustrating for residents. And there's no doubt, again, that that might be an issue. It is not a matter for a licensing committee today. If there are problems around junctions, obviously people are responsible to the law in their own right. If they decide to do stupid three point turns at a junction, that is down to them. The police have the powers to deal with that. Traffic management highways deal with your double yellow lines. This could be, as it was alluded to by the councillor just now, could be any kind of business. And you'd have people wanting to park. We're only here to consider the alcohol licensing side of things. And I will say, I've obviously done quite a bit of research. There's plenty of parking. Mr. Sabberson isn't going to do anything different to what he was doing at the Londis. He has a van. He doesn't have a big delivery van coming from any of the big companies. He has his own small van that he'll be using. And there are no, the WL lines, you quite right, chair, do stop kind of halfway up. And then it's parking, there's parking on the other side of the road, there's parking at the front. So there's plenty of parking. I'm afraid we can't really account for people behaving badly. There's nothing we can do about that. So I just wanted to reiterate that while it's understandable people have concern about things changing, the beauty of this application, which is highly unusual, is you have an applicant who has worked three doors, however many doors down it is, for 10 years and managed that premises with no problems at all. And all he is doing, that safe pair of pounds, he's moving a few doors up to do exactly the same thing at his own premises. So it's a very robust application. The police are the experts to you in all the issues that could be a concern. And they see no problems with the application. The hours that have been sought, they're quite happy with, as are the other responsible authorities. So I would ask you to grant it. Let Mr. Saberson do his own thing for once. And obviously, the residents, if they do find there's a massive shift in problems, they've got the power of review to bring Mr. Saberson back in front of you, should there be any need. Thank you. Thank you very much, Jill. So I think that now concludes the deliberations on this application. Obviously, we will need to go away and reach a decision with our legal advisor in providing support. And then we will let people know within the prescribed period. And obviously, if you're not happy, there is a right of appeal to the magistrate's court. But could I thank, well, I want to thank John and Valerie for coming today. I do see you very much as representing the community, whatever Jill says. Clearly, there is a strong view. But nevertheless, we have to operate within the framework, the legal framework that we have. And could I thank also Jill for being so articulate and forcible and to Mr. Saberson and his son for coming along. And we will let you know the decision within a few days. Thank you very much. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. Bye. So we now can move on to the other item, which is in relation to the Borough Hall, Royal Hill. And can I just check that the applicant legal representative is here? Is that Philemon Adaleke? That is correct. I'll be representing myself today. All right. So you're the you're the applicant and you're representing yourself. That is correct. Philemon, lovely. Thank you. And those making representations. So I've got the police PC, Sam Bob. He's not present, chair. Not present. Right. Blake Jackson. Not present, chair. Not present. I can see Tony. Tony Oton. Jonathan Hare. I'm present. Jonathan Hare, I can see. Yeah. We're looking at your staircase. Mark Howard. I can see Mark. Thank you. Christina Buckley. Just flicking through. I can't see. I can't see Christina Buckley. No, I think she was here earlier, chair, but maybe she's dropped off. Right. OK, we'll come back to her. Georgia May Mears Fullan. Not present. Not present. Adrian Lesnar. I believe he's present. Yeah, I can't see him at the moment. He's present. That's good. Yes, I can see him. Caroline Spate, I think I saw. Yes. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Matthew Tingle. Present, chair. Present. And last but not least, Seema Joshi. Yes, hello. Hello. Hello. With me. Lovely. So can I just confirm all parties received a link to the agenda pack? Good. Can I draw your attention, particularly like we've got far more representations on this item, to the 15 minute time limit? I mean, obviously, we've just got one applicant, but that will necessarily restrict the time that we have available for objectors. Yes, so because we're under a duty to balance. And can I ask those making representations to keep the points that you make to those that you made in your written representation, which we've had and read, and all the issues raised should be relevant to the four licensing objectives. And try not to repeat anything anyone else has said. So it's quite acceptable to come in and just say, well, I agree with all that's been said by so and so. And I've got nothing to add. So we could agree some additional time, but hopefully that won't be appropriate. It won't be needed. But if necessary, we could do. So could I ask the licensing officer, Chris Devine, to give an outline summary of the report, please? Chris, over to you. Thank you, Chair. So the subcommittee is requested to consider an application made by Eden Group Operations Limited for the grant of a premises licence in relation to the borough hall. When considering the application, members must have due regard to the representations made and take such steps as it considers a proportionate and reasonable for the promotion of the licensing objectives. And it's open to you to grant the application modified to such an extent that the licensing authority considers appropriate for the promotion of the licensing objectives. You may impose additional conditions on the licence or you may refuse the application in whole or in part. You may only consider matters that have been raised by way of written representation and any licensing conditions may only be imposed to promote the licensing objectives and must relate to the representations from responsible authorities or other persons. As a brief summary of the application, the applicant is seeking the supply of alcohol for consumption on the premises Sunday through Wednesday from 11am to 11pm and Thursday through Saturday from 11am until 0100 hours the following morning. The council may impose conditions on the licence that are consistent with those offered in the applicant's operating schedule and those are laid out in paragraph 3. 2.3 of the report. In addition, the Metropolitan Police requested that the applicant consider an additional condition regarding welfare. That condition has now been agreed, which I imagine is why the police aren't here today. In terms of the application, this was received on the 11th of November, the original last date for representation was set as the 10th of December. However, the applicant wasn't able to place their newspaper advert within the statutory timeframe and so the consultation was extended for a short period thereafter to the 13th of December to account for this with all representations having to be received before this date. The applicant otherwise adhered to the government regulations by advertising the notice at and in the vicinity of the premises for 28 days and also in local press. In terms of representations, there has been the one from the police, which has been dealt with by means of agreeing the condition and eight representations from residents received within the consultation period. Briefly, those representations opposed the license as applied for stating that proposed times are excessive and unsuitable. Some proposed alternative terminal times are between 10.30pm through till midnight as being more appropriate for the area. And the objections highlight the increase in residential development surrounding the venue, making the proposed late night operations and extended hours potentially problematic. Specifically, they raise concerns about the potential for an increase in antisocial behaviour, excessive noise pollution and disruption from late night deliveries and noisy operations generally. The objections emphasise existing issues since the premises starting operating, such as disruption from late night deliveries, increased traffic and parking, litter and noise from staff as people arrive at the premises. There are also more serious allegations of smoking of cannabis and open drug use, drug dealing associated with some inaugural events. And now we're going to give you a short PowerPoint presentation just to show the local area. Would you ever confirm that you can see a red screen on your on your screen? I can. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. So the premises is located here on Royal Hill. Hopefully you can see where my mouse is on the screen. So I think you're you're you're well aware of the location. But major landmarks are the Greenwich mainline railway station is left here and the main town centre would be just up Greenwich High Road towards the north here. From the bird's eye view, it looks like this. The premises located in this area. Other licensed premises and local area include St. Christopher's Inn or Belushi's. You've also got an Aldi and a Sainsbury's over here and you have the cinema complex. You've also just off the south of the screen, you have the Richard the first and the Prince of Greenwich public houses. Otherwise, the immediate area surrounding the premises is predominantly residential. And we'll see some of those houses when we come down to a ground level. But in particular, this new development directly opposite the premises, which hadn't been constructed when the premises last operated under the Greenwich Dance Agency. So from the ground, it looks like this. As you see, it is three storeys, four of you include the basement, large, large entrance, which goes into a foyer that we'll have a look at shortly. Looking up Royal Hill, you can see some of the nearby residences. So both going up Royal Hill and the new complex directly opposite, which you can see there. So the premises just behind us. And then looking the other direction towards Greenwich High Road. This is the junction of Payton Place where there are some more residential premises down the end of it. So if we turn left. This is Payton Place. And if we go down to the end of the road, there's a small close of additional houses there. The doors that you can see to the right hand side are exits and emergency exits to the minor hall, which we'll see shortly. So this is the main foyer to the premises. You can see four of the five main doors there. The other one's tucked behind the lift and behind us would be the minor hall, which looks like this. So this hall has a capacity of around, I believe it's 150 to 300 people, depending on whether it's sat or standing. As you can see, it's a small it's a small hall. It has a stage area. And the the exits that we saw on the street level are led to through through these doors here, not directly. I believe they go through to a hallway. And then upstairs, you've got the auditorium, which is the the larger of the two halls. This can potentially host up to a thousand people, I believe stood. It has a large stage area and we'll have a quick look around it. So it also has a secondary circle area. And in the lower left hand side, if I can get my mouse back, it has a bar area here as well. We'll shortly look go through this door as well where there's another there's another small bar area. And then off of the main hall, there is a small ancillary bar area, which is currently being used for storage. And you can see the bar area down here and this door leads back through to the main hall. And then just the view from the bar. That concludes my my summary chair, obviously happy to take any questions now or for out. Thank you very much. Chris. Any questions from Councilor Sullivan or Councilor Bird? No, thanks. No, thanks. Thank you very much, Chair. Thank you for the presentation. Thank you. Could I just ask about soundproofing? I will obviously ask the applicant as well, but is there any assurances in relation to soundproofing? There's nothing mentioned in the application that I recall of. Obviously, it is a bespoke function hall, but I suspect that's a question you'll need to direct towards the applicant. Yeah. Okay. Thank you very much. So if we could move on then to the applicant. There are no questions to the licensee officer. So over to you then, Philemon. Up to 15 minutes, but you don't need to take the 15 minutes. Thank you. And if in addressing us, you'd just like to touch on some of the points made by local people in the written representations as well, and address those. Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you so much for your time. I'll try to be quick, effective and not waste any minutes. I'm going to address this in two parts. Part one, we're going to discuss the application itself. And then the second part of my speech will be to address the representations that have been made. So just discussing the application for what it is. We have gone through a process of consultations before making this application. When we decided to, as a company to take on this property, we sought consultations from the police and from the licensing department to get their opinions. We also sought consultations from the ward counsellors to get a better feel on whether or not what we wanted to do was appropriate in this area and if there was a need for it. And that was our primary goal before we decided to start refurbishment and make the needed investments and make the facilities workable. I'd like to say upon noticing the police have not brought any formal representations other than the fact that they want us to ensure patron safety when selling alcohol by providing additional training for the bar staff, which is completely acceptable. And I actually like that condition. It just ensures our staff are well equipped to handle the procedure of running the bar properly. The licensing team as well did not object. There was a condition mentioned around noise prevention and us ensuring we do adequate work with the fire escapes, check all broken windows and fix them and basically prevent noise leakage from all the exit points. I think it's worth noting when we took on the property, there was a lot of damage done to this fantastic listed building you've just seen. It's taken a considerable amount of investment from myself as a small business taking this on. We've spent a lot of time, a lot of effort and a lot of a lot of turmoil in the last four or five months just trying to get this building restored. We noticed a number of needles drug use. There was a lot of squatters who had taken over the property and they've really brought it back to a really derelict state. And as such, our first few months required a lot of skips and a lot of movement and a lot of stuff, which I'm sure would have irritated a lot of residents as soon as we moved in, because there was a substantial amount of work done to bring 40,000 square foot of commercial space back back into use, essentially. Once we did decide on the route we wanted to take and making this application, one of the things we did early on was we wanted to invite the local residents and make them a part of our plans. We didn't want to put in an application without having that conversation. So my wife and I, who are the business owners, we decided to host them in the minor hall. And we really focused on the Payton Place residents because we felt they were the residents that will be most affected by any activities we do, considering our car optimize and loading bay are directly in line with where their homes are. So we wanted to bring them in and sort of see how they felt about us being an operation on site before we made the application. I believe from that conversation we had really good dialogue. I made sure my phone number was available for any of the residents if they had any issues so they have a point of contact. I didn't want them speaking to event managers or security staff. I wanted them to have a direct line of communication with myself so we could have a relationship and try and make sure that any issues they have are immediately rectified. So since publishing these plans, I think it's quite important to highlight two aspects of it, the local community and the wider community that have been impacted by us announcing we're opening the venue. We've seen quite a substantial amount of demand for this public space, which quite surprised us. And you would have probably noticed the representations. There's a lot of interest and intrigue around what goes on with the Borough Hall. I'll just give you a few examples of occupiers and people that have been interested since we've announced we're reopening the Borough Hall. We've had local bands that now have international reach, like Squeeze, who are looking to make reunions on site. We've had West End performers from within the Borough, which quite surprised me who you are looking to do intimate evenings. I didn't know Greenwich had so many West End performers that live inside of it. I mean, you're talking about West End performers that have done Bend It Like Beckham, Pretty Women, Beatty and the Beast. We've even had an actor who was in Mamma Mia. And, you know, all of these are locals. We've now learnt they have a close connection with Greenwich Borough and they would like to use the space to be able to host intimate nights. And we thought, you know what, we need a license to be able to accommodate a lot of these different uses because they fall under the regulated entertainment use. And just the nature of doing them requires us to have one. We've had dance academy groups show interest. We've had ballet schools ranging from age 6 to 11 who want to utilise the space on a regular basis. All of that requires the need for this license. We've had faculty heads from Trinity College who have actually approached us and come for sight viewings, who manage the wind percussion groups of colleges who say, this is a fantastic asset. We want to be part of it. We want to be involved and we want to utilise the space. We've even host the James Wolfe School mass assemblies, where over 700 students for the first time in seven years have been able to host their school assemblies for the first time in the borough hall. And that is something that we look to repeat regularly, because as the name says, the borough hall, we want it to be a hall for the borough. So on to the aspects that concerns this meeting, the actual use of the premises is quite important to explain. Although the application is quite extensive, the actual use of the property is not as scary as it seems. Typically on a Monday to Thursday, there'll be as few as 10 people to 100 people on site. That'll be it. Most of the uses during the week are not a lot of people. So Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, that's when we are likely to have closer to full capacity use of the space. On rare occasions, we might receive more today booking interest for the facilities, but that is very rare. The frequency of use of the premises is not more than 15 to 20 percent in terms of the amount of time on the license that would actually be on site utilising it. So it's very important that we highlight that point. And just in the interest of time, I don't know how much minutes I've used right now. I want to quickly address some of the representations, because for us, once we went on to the matter of occupying the premises, we wanted to, I know, you know, case better judgment, trial events to see how it works, to see what tweaks we need to make to make it sustainable. And I'd like to address some of these representations and see how best we can achieve harmony with the residents that are most affected, because ultimately, we didn't take this venue to be a nuisance. There's nothing worse than residents feeling they are losing their right to a peaceful environment. So whatever adjustments we need to make, we're here to listen. I've made it clear to the residents on numerous occasions, contact me. Let's have an open dialogue and figure out a way to better make sure that this doesn't have any negative impact. Point number one, late night activities happening on a regular basis. I've addressed that shortly. It isn't going to be regular. I personally think the licensable hours we've applied for, we probably only need it on Saturday. I'm more than happy for every other day of the week for us to shut an earlier time, because I don't think it's required, to be honest with you. It was something we asked for, but it's not something that will impede our ability to run this business. And I don't think it's something that I want to arm wrestle with the locals about. I don't think that's an issue for us to deliberate on too much. Receiving deliveries late tonight. I have noted the Amapro residents that live directly in front of the venue are most affected by deliveries. To give you context, Eden Group are primarily wedding operators. We manage about five different premises that run weddings. So we have all this furniture and inventory, and we're very interested by the space. We want to do lots of staging and photo shoots to demonstrate different ways to different user groups of how the space can be utilized. One thing that we've noted and we are going to be making the adjustment on is we've stopped and will not allow any late deliveries to be happening on site. So if we have photo shoots or things that are doing on site, we will be allowing staging to go past 11 o'clock or midnight where those deliveries we made. We've taken note of those complaints and we're happy to address them. Next one, vendors uploading once an event is finished. I am aware that when an event is operating, it finishes at 11 p.m. That doesn't mean the last person will leave by that time. Unfortunately, there is a reality that vendors will need to act down. They need to move their things out. It's just the nature of running events. One of the things that we're looking to make adjustments on is making better use of the car optimize we have behind the venue. We have enough space for our vendors where they don't need to be at the front. One of the relationships we've built really good connections with is the Meridian House, which is the property adjacent to our property. We have about eight to 10 parking spaces. They have a further 20. And we've never allowed more than 10 to 15 vehicles to utilize our car park because we don't want that issue of too many vehicles coming to the rent. But we will be using that for the vendors because we feel they need that extra time to be able to make their packed out done properly. Another representation point that has been mentioned a lot is waste removal and the issue around additional waste accumulating because you've got large gatherings of people. I mean, there's some obvious things that we are going to do to make sure that is less a problem. One of the things that are obvious, which everyone would probably say, additional waste bins at the entrance will be added. Absolutely. Sweeping of litter around the streets adjacent to the venue is something we're also looking to introduce. One concern that I do have, which I have mentioned to the licensing team is that we noted that, as you can see in the pictures, a lot of our fire exits are blocked by bins that belong to residents on Peyton Place. I believe because it's been closed for so many years, there's just been a general allowance for those bins to be parked there. I'm more than happy to create a bin store for those residents. But I do believe that the fact they're right on the side of the building means people that are passing by, whether they're coming in or going out, will see those bins and assume they are related to the venue. And unfortunately, they're utilizing the bins of residence, which should never happen. And I've told my team moving forward to take note of that and to ensure we curb that. But I think there are more collaborative ways for us to ensure that waste accumulation doesn't build up and become a bigger problem. The next representation point I'll address is noise leakage. One of the things we've noted is we spent a substantial amount of investment, as you can imagine, on trying to soundproof such a large building. And the first thing we did was we looked at the month of December as our month to just recalibrate our strategy, find a way to seal every single window in the building that we felt still had an open vent or a possibility of air. And that meant lots of scaffold towers and awkward fire exit points trying to seal that up. That is now being done. The next stage of ensuring additional soundproofing, we are studying the air ventilation system to see if there is any noise leakage that are coming out from the air vents to better insulate the building. But with a building that had been built in the 1930s, there's only so much you can do to perfect the sound insulation. But it's a purpose built assembly hall that has a good amount of insulation already within it. And we'll work consistently to try and enhance that. The next one, which I take a lot more seriously, is adequate road safety measures. One of the problems that we have and we've noted is when we launched the venue, we did not have adequate traffic control barriers. I'm not going to pretend and sugarcoat that we were perfect operators. We had a game plan about every potential problem. We've learned from the operations and seeing what doesn't work and what it will be a real issue for us. So one of the things we've done, and I'm hoping some of the residents are honest enough to at least say that we've made these changes happen in December. We've started increasing the amount of parking wardens with high visibility vests. They are using crowd control barriers to ensure we can control the movement of vehicles and ensure that they're not all parking or double parking in the wrong places. You know, that is something that moving forward, we just have to implement for every large scale event and ensure that we have adequate staffing on site to ensure that's managed properly. Another thing is, well, when it comes to crowd management, it's just ensuring that they take off the entire pavement. One of the frustrations about running a large scale venue is when people are outside and the event organizers don't have their ticketing ready. They want queues outside. So we're now working with event organizers to make sure we don't allow the queues to go all the way across and create an impediment for people that are walking to their homes to have to cross the road. That's something we don't want to happen. So we're going to be utilizing crowd control barriers. We're going to be utilizing our minor pool to create new queuing systems to ensure we don't have more than 25 to 50 patrons at one point outside the venue. One thing I would like to address, which is quite serious, and I've noticed in the representation and I thought it would be very poor for me if I don't bring it up, was the funeral wake we had on the 26th of November, which I'm sure a lot of the representations that will be spoken about today will address. It's very important to understand the nature of our business. We are a functional hall for hire. We don't directly sell tickets to guests, at least not yet, until we start doing actual programming that's community led. So we do risk assessments on each event organizer that comes to us, and we make a judgment call on what we think is appropriate means of security and crowd control management. The 26th of November, we took on a funeral wake, and the bereaved family gave us a guest capacity of 250. That guest capacity is what we worked towards, and we made provisions for staffing to support. Unfortunately, from our perspective, we didn't do enough security measures to ensure that if there was an increase in guests, we were adequately prepared to deal with that. And upon that event, we noticed a number of issues which we believe in December we've addressed. One of them was the fact that there was a lot of double parking that day, it was horrendous to see, and obviously we are aware that that can never happen again. We've spoken to the counselors, we've made it known that, look, moving forward, these are the changes we're looking to implement. We're going to make sure that doesn't happen, we're going to make sure we have people at the front of the venue, all the way across the Royal Hill, ensuring that's not happening. We do note as well that there were some representations made about cannabis smoking and the sale of drugs. That is a very serious accusation. One thing I would say is the smoking area that they used at the front, there were some people smoking cannabis, that is correct. But the idea of them selling drugs, we did not witness any of the sale or transaction or finances. They were there for a funeral wait, and there was a bereavement going on. Patrons should not be doing that, as we are aware. The smoking area that we are looking to create for them will be the rare because we realise we're so close to the pavement of a public road, that we need to create a closed demise for to full patrons that want to smoke outside. And we're going to restrict it to five or six people. What happened that day is you had groups of 30 or 40 people all standing outside, which isn't great. It doesn't look good and it doesn't help our cause. So we are aware of that. We take ownership of that mistake. And like I said in December, if the residents are honest, you'll see that's not been repeated. Apologies, I'm rebuttling the same points, but I'll leave it for now and hopefully we can pick up on other points later. Sorry, Dave. Fine. Thank you very much indeed. I mean, that's very illuminating and very honest and straight. So I just I wanted to pick up on one point before I come to other questions, if I might, which is around the hours of the hours in the application. You said you only really need the late hours on Saturday and obviously quite important. So I wondered in that case, would it be acceptable to you if we were to change the hours from Sunday to Friday, 11 to 23 and then just Saturday, 11 to 01 and the similar changes for recorded music and for late night refreshments? So it would only be for Saturday. I'll be very happy to do that. I'd be very happy to to make those changes. We'd need to put we'd need to make that in our deliberations because the application formally is for the later hours. But that's that's that's that's very helpful indeed. OK, any questions from councillors Bird or Sullivan? Yes, I'd like to I'd like to ask. I think some people are alarmed at the possibility that a part that aside from this being a venue, higher business to in effect, it's a sort of tissues way of actually using a nightclub. And I think the horrors that some people might have and some of the real objections that they might have might stem from that. I mean, can you assure us that that your business is essentially around venue higher? There'll be a range of different activities actually in the building and that these will be thoroughly professionally managed. But I'm just wary that we might be through the back door be introducing a nightclub into the venue, which I think would be horrendous. But I do think we have the borough halls and I think the borough halls, I think you should be congratulated on bringing that back into community use, but not. But not at the expense of communities, I mean, it is. Absolutely, Councillor Dave, I think that's a very fair point. Day drinking nightclub initiatives, that's not something we've ever been a part of. As venue operators, we've been operating for 10 years. And just to give you one example, we've taken in Croydon a venue that was a nightclub and converted it into a wedding venue. We have a 5am license and we don't use it. We close our doors at 12 midnight because we don't have an appetite for that business. We don't have a desire to run that business. We don't have an interest. Yeah, I'm a family man. I have three newborns. My oldest child is two years old. I have no desire to be up at 5am, you know, in the middle of the night, dealing with drunken guests and cleaning up vomit. To give you an example, already we've brought in furniture, flea markets. We've brought in amazing film bookings, although I give it there could be a bit noisy loading in and out. But the rich tapestry and the diversity of the range of things that we're looking to host at the Borough Hall for us is an opportunity as a business to expand our catalogue of contacts. And our interest is purely in ensuring that is demonstrated in what we do. So I do take your point and I want to ensure that will not be the case. Thank you very much for the one. Councillor Byrd, you had a question. Yes, thank you, Chair. And thank you very much for the presentation. As somebody who's used the Borough Halls for youth activities for many years, I'm pleased to see, echo Dave Sullivan's point, I'm pleased to see that it's actually being renovated and used. It's an amazing building. However, if when people rent or when people hire from you and they overshoot their numbers, how are you? Can I ask how you're monitoring this? Because that's a major issue. I mean, it's bad for you. It's bad for your reputation, but it's also horrendous for the residents. You know, if somebody's if the restriction is 250 people, what's your policy on, you know, suddenly there's more or four times as many. What do you do is my concern. Absolutely, Councillor Lindner. Thank you for that. I think that funeral wake was a real eye opener. I couldn't sleep that night. Number six page in place, for example, sent me a long message and immediately I called it the next day to say, look, they are going to be additional control measures. We do, you know, we will not be relaxed moving forward with the security staff in the parking wardens. Even if we think it's 200 guests, we're still going to prepare for 600. I think it's better safe than sorry in a scenario where we're opening up to the public or allowing live events to happen. So one of the things we're going to do is we're not going to leave it in their hands or trust that that will be the case. One of the affairs we had with the funeral, because the resident did ask us, why didn't you just close down the venue that night? And if you knew that more guests arrived, one of the things we were more concerned about was egress and 600 people breathing. At the same time, we thought, you know what, this is not the best way of containing the situation. It'll exasperate the situation. The guests were not misbehaving inside the venue. They didn't do anything disorderly. There was no real reason apart from the breach of capacity for us to take that action. So one of the things we'll be doing is ensuring that higher damage deposits are incurred so that there's a fear of losing that money and also ensuring we just have adequate staffing to handle the full capacity of the venue when we are opening for a Saturday night, for example, or doing an event. I hope that helps. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. If there are no further questions from Councillor Byrd or Sullivan, my only other question in relation to the issues around traffic and parking and so forth. Very often, as part of planning applications, more than licensing applications, we'll ask applicants to come up with a green travel plan. I appreciate your mainly on hires, but with your hire, your contracts that you signed with those people that are hiring on a one off basis or a recurring basis, do they include or would they include any sort of wording on green travel? Because obviously, it's a location with very high public transport accessibility rating. I've got someone's left there, Michael. I just wondered if that is part of your contracts with hires to encourage all their attendees to travel by public transport or use sustainable means. Thank you, Councillor David. I mean, you're completely correct. We're quite fortunate in a sense of we're close to the DLR. We're close to Greenwich station. It's walkable from most of the train stations. The reality is we will encourage them to do that, but we are not ignorant of the fact there will be patrons that come via cars. If they're coming for an evening show at 6, 7pm with kids, they're going to find it more convenient to drive down. One of the things we are looking to do is introduce parking plans as well, which we hand to patrons as they arrive in front of the venue so that they know where all the side streets are. I mean, just to give you a few of the free parking after 6pm, which you're already aware of. You've got Bernie Street. You've got Crooms Hill Road. You've got Hydeville. You've got Greenwich High Road. You've got Circus Street. You've got Briar Street. Just within two minutes of walking to the venue, there is more than enough side street parking to accommodate them. I think the problem is when they're left to their own devices and there's no one who can tell them where to go. If people are coming to the venue for the first time, they're not familiar with the Greenwich area, they wouldn't know what to do. And as long as we're able to direct and move them, we can deal with the incoming traffic to vehicles. But you're absolutely right. We do want to also take more local events that don't even require cars. For me, I would, you know, not take as many private bookings, you know, but that will require us having more of these West End performers just taken on dates. You know, the more localized we can be in our programming, the less vehicular traffic we're going to have to suffer. And hopefully the plan is to increase the amount of in-house programming we could do as time goes on and not rely so much on external event hire to kind of balance out the vehicular issues we're talking about. If there are no further questions, then I'm conscious that members of the public have been very patient and holding on. But you had an opportunity now to see the office of presentation and to hear from the applicant, be aware of the undertaking in terms of the revision of hours as well. So we'll now come to the chance for the people making representations to have their say and add to your written representation. We will try and keep the time limited until now 11.52 so that we have that balance. I don't think Blake Jackson was here, is he? Remember? No. But I can see Tony and Helen Oten. So, Tony, do you want to open up and give a verbal representation on the application? Thank you very much, Chairman. My microphone is not terribly well working. There are many of my colleagues here who've got lots of things clearly to say, particularly Caroline. What I would say is that it's an irony that here was a community hall for many, many years, a brilliant community hall. And now we've got people coming from far away who are not part of the community and who are and the and the people who are running it are gaining money on that behalf. And that is very sad over to our colleagues. Perhaps Caroline would like to speak first. Thank you. Can you hear me? I would just like to say that today we've been given a lot of assurances by the Eden project managers, but so far the history doesn't speak very well. Very concerning that somebody who's claims to be managing events has, by their own admission, not managed events to date very well. We've been given a lot of assurances about systems and policies he intends to put into place to make this workable. But my question is, how are we going to get guarantees? And actually, they can't be enforceable. Even events have no statutory right or enforceability of traffic measures. So we can be told everything today. We can be made promises today. We can be given assurances today. But I can't see that there'll be any way of enforcing those or putting them as a criteria for use. Thank you very much, Caroline. Tony, are you orchestrating an order here? No, but please, Matthew, Tingle, Mark, Jonathan, all should be allowed to speak, please. Thank you. So the next one on my list, anyway, is Jonathan Hare. Hi, can you hear me? We can. We can. Yeah. Thank you. The other kind of comparable premises. If I look at the page 35 minute tour. The ones with the late licenses, but Felushi's Lost Hour and the Picturehouse, right? They're all on the Greenwich High Road. The Picturehouse is a cinema. I've gone to a late film. They really got Felushi's Lost Hour. I'd say that they're on the high road. They're not that residential. They're back on the train station. So I don't. The others have. Yeah. I was the. And then just. I won't go to the rubbish in the road is what it is. I know that I've been doing a lot on the road. In terms of the soundproofing. So some of the windows have boarded up. You know, I don't do that. It's soundproofing. I don't do that. I don't. And then just the final point. It's a small one. On the bin. So on place in place. The pavement for the first house is really short. Then it gets a bit wider. So we've got bins on number one. But they. The council asked them just to put them across the other side of the road. There's a bigger pavement. Basically. So mine are labeled, but they're not. They're not part of their exit door. There are some unlabeled bins. Which might be on those doors. But I think that's smaller point. But my main point. Is on the hours. And I just don't think that the premises for later hours. Are a residential area. And so. Another part of the residential area. Is that one? Yeah. Oh. Yeah. It's a little bit more. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, Jonathan. Could I just ask you, if you live opposite in Payton Place, would it, Philemon, as the applicant, said he's worked closely with local residents, have you been in touch and did you go to the open session? I couldn't, I just had a newborn so I couldn't make the open session, but we've been speaking quite a lot to, so we've been given the number to Tech, who didn't have any issues, but also they started to kind of regulate the road so we can speak to people at the front of the roads. Occasionally some of the kind of parking issues are just through the days of delivery stuff and we've had like, for Christmas, there was a band loading up in the road and they were in the hall and they left their truck in the middle of the road and then some other truckers came from their car park and get through, someone's behind them, holding this horn down, get them to come out of the hall for about 20-25 minutes, a bit of knowledge. I can't call Eden for that, it's just trying to talk to them, let's move on and then kind of, sometimes it's inaccessible, you can't be, things like that, but yeah unfortunately I can turn up to the building. But just to pursue that, if I might Jonathan, obviously it's important for residents, the applicant said that he's going to try and make sure that all the sort of loading and unloading is done at the back and looking at my map, the only entrance to the back is from Payton Place, hence the importance of keeping Payton Place clear, so the, you know, lorries and other vehicles that are loading and unloading can have, so the actual point of loading and unloading would be a fairly sound, you know, you wouldn't hear that right at the back of the premises, but you might hear them pulling in and out of Payton Place, particularly if there were access issues, is what you're saying. It's quite a small car park where they have, it's still quite tight, so lorries are quite big, so someone will start to be able to get down there quite a few, and if they get one turn, it's quite at my house, and that's why most people load, it's a little bit of a road. Well thank you very much. Now I'm conscious that my colleagues might have questions for Tony, Caroline or Jonathan before we move on to other people. Linda or Dave, do you have any questions to those? No thank you. Not at the moment. Just listening, thank you very much. Just listening, yeah, thank you. So we'll move on then in my list. I've got Christina Buckley. No? No, not here. Not here. Georgia May Mears Fullan? Not here, but Mark Howard is here. Oh sorry, I've missed out Mark Howard. Yeah, sorry Mark, over to you. Thank you Mr Chairman. I live actually on the corner of the entrance in the parking area. Payton Place is an incredible, just sort of echoing Jonathan's points, Payton Place is a very narrow road at the best of times. You can barely fit a car down there when cars are parked on both sides, so I have absolutely no idea how on earth we think we're going to get these trucks down there. My house is on the corner as they turn into the parking bay. I'm somewhat concerned about the noise prospects of them having a smoking area right outside the back, which backs onto my property. The noise point on the noise pollution, I can tell you at the current events after 11 o'clock, and it's been many events since it's had it, you can hear it from inside my house. Now, maybe I need to be spending thousands of pounds to improve my own noise pollution, but I never had a problem until these items stop. Many of us down the road have children. You know, the amount of people that come down here, you know, I had situations where I had guests for the hall coming on, banging on my door, because they thought my house was the entrance for the hall. My two young daughters were quite terrified by that event, and they wouldn't leave. The two gentlemen that were banging, they were sat on up by step out the front, because they did believe that it wasn't the entrance. We've had people trying to do three point turns in an area where you could barely even get one car down. I mean, it's just the disruption has been pretty incredible over the last three months. So God knows what it'd be like if we've got people coming out trying to do this at 11, 12 o'clock, you know, over a weekend. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mark. We will take those points on board and I'm sure the applicant applicant hopefully will be able to answer that. I'm, yes, very conscious of your location is, just to check Dave, your location, there seems to be, I'm not sure there's a block of flats on my Google map or a house, but it's right on the corner of, you're right adjacent to the borough halls on Payton Place and the entrance to the back area, servicing area comes right next to your house. So any lorries, vehicles accessing the loading and unloading will come right past your house. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Uh, Dave, did you have a, I just wanted to ask Mark, um, how long he's actually lived there? Um, um, just coming up to three years. And all that time the halls has been shut. It has. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Uh, thank you very much. Um, Mark. Um, so I've got, uh, uh, Adrian Lester, Adrian, are you with us? Yes, I can see you're there. Hello everyone. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, just, I'm not going to, um, repeat what's already been made, uh, by the respondents, but a couple of points that the applicant made, um, when we were first consulted, the applicant really publicized the fact this would be a community use. I would encourage the councillors to get onto his own website. Anyone can hire that hall. Anyone can hire that hall up to a capacity of 800 people. Um, that's a huge amount of people and will cause a huge amount of disruption. A couple of points that concern me that he made, um, apparently he's going to restrict smoking to five or six people. I'm not sure how he's going to police that when there's potentially 800 boxing fans. And I've been to boxing matches and I know what they do at boxing matches. They drink and they get drunk. So I'm not sure how he's going to actually police a significant proportion of 800 people. We want to go outside and smoke at one o'clock in the morning and create a huge amount of noise and litter. Um, I'll just quickly repeat Mark's point. Patent Place is a really narrow road, really narrow. Emergency access is extremely important. If there's a fire, if there's a health issue for anyone in Patent Place, while there's a venue with cars parked either side, a fire engine will not be able to get down that road. An ambulance will struggle to get down Patent Place. So parking has been a major issue. The capacity has been a major issue. The, the, the argument put forward that this will be purely community use when we were first consulted, it's clearly not the case when you look at their website. Anyone can hire that hall. They're a with-profit organisation. It's in their interests to make sure they get as many people in that hall as possible. Um, thank you for your time. Uh, thank, thanks very much, Adrian. Are there any questions from Councillor Byrd or Sullivan to Mr. Lesnar? No? Okay. Um, thank you very much. Uh, obviously we can't take account of, uh, commercial issues. Um, but obviously the other points you make are very valid. Um, so, uh, I've got, uh, Matthew Tingle. Hi. And Seema Joshi. You're together, are you? Great. Yeah, they're together. Uh, so we live at Ernest Cottage. Uh, so when you look at the map, we are actually neighbours directly to Mark. So we're at two houses down from the back side of the Borough Hall. And so we have been living there for 15 years. So just, I know that came up earlier. So we were living there or have been living there when the dance school was in use. And actually we were very happy when the dance school was in use. We were very sad, actually, when the dance school closed. We, I myself did yoga classes there. I myself, we did ballroom dance classes. There was a very, I just want to highlight the use, the way they did it was obviously, uh, it never brought up this same type of attention. It was really, uh, in nice, uh, rhythm with the people who were living on the street. Um, in terms of the sound, I, even just a week before Christmas, or a few, I was actually lying in my bed and I could hear the music so loudly coming from the dance hall. And, uh, and that's actually happened about two or three times. So I'm actually two houses down and I can hear it in my house. And we have two children in our house, um, who are 10 and 12. And, you know, it just reverberates because of the nature of the road. It was not, as we know, it's not a through road. It's a, it's a dead end road. So any of that sound that's coming, it's just reverberating and going back. Uh, and you know, so actually I appreciate that it was said that some soundproofing has been done, but it is clearly insufficient, uh, whatever has been done. And actually for the initial presentation, there was no photo as to the back of the building. And I think this is a key point to show, you can see how big it is in the back, all of the windows, the broken windows, and where there has been sort of attempts to board up the windows. Uh, because this is a major problem, uh, in terms of the sound that comes onto on directly onto all of the people that are living there on that side. And I'm not, I agree with all the, we agree with the traffic related points, the access points, those are all super problematic. Um, I think our main, our main, we don't understand why the nighttime license is required or the late evening licenses is a residential area. And we, you know, we, we do want it to be a community use space that's used well, but we do not understand why that additional requirement is needed, particularly where it's having such a negative impact on us. Thank you very much, um, Seema. Um, so, uh, did you have anything to add, Matthew? Um, I mean, I'll just echo what, what the other, um, residents of Peyton Place have said, you know, it, it, it's a super residential, um, area. It's a small, it's a small cul-de-sac. Um, and, um, despite assurances that have been given by, uh, Eden Group and by Phil, um, we, you know, there have been problems and we, we, we don't see that getting any better with a late license. Um, you know, we, we've got, we've got children, even if we didn't have children, um, it's, uh, you know, it's, it's, it's really, we feel it's, it's, it's really unacceptable and we strongly oppose this application. Thank you. Um, could I just ask you both, were there any conditions that you feel that, that haven't been addressed in the list of conditions, any other conditions that you would like to see that we could potentially, um, uh, consider? Yeah. I, I, I appreciate, you know, um, the, the, the, um, make the, the offer of making an amendment just Saturday, but, you know, we would strongly oppose that too. Hmm. You're not opposing the amended hours, but you would oppose it continuing so late on Saturday. We, we, we, we, we oppose the, the amended hours, the, the extension, which has been applied for, you know, we strongly oppose that. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Are there any questions to Seymour or Matthew from, uh, councillors Bird or Sullivan? No. Well, thank you very much, uh, for your time. Um, I can see, uh, there are, uh, strong passions and strong arguments, um, and I'll move to be fair, move back to, uh, uh, Philemon as the applicant to answer Mr. Adelaide to answer the points that have been, uh, made by local residents. Um, well, I mean, the two core points seem to be around, uh, access and the parking traffic issues around Peyton Place, uh, and also the noise, um, particularly obviously at the back as you face onto Peyton Place, um, and, uh, you know, given there are children and so forth living there. Uh, but, but, uh, over to you, uh, Mr. Adelaide. Thank you, Councillor. Um, thank you all for, um, explaining some of the issues. I just wanted to clarify one point that I did make earlier in my presentation, which might have been misconstrued. I'm not looking for all the furniture and inventory to be delivered through Peyton Place. The front still provides the biggest and widest access for those deliveries. What I was referring to is when we have late night vendors like caterers offloading from events, because they're already parking at the rare, they could come out of the rare from Peyton Place. The front will still be the best demise for larger vehicles because I am aware Peyton Place is a narrow road and I do not want big lorries or big vehicles trying to go down that narrow road. I think that would be chaos. Um, so just to be clear, it will be restricted only to vendors. Our intention is not to use Peyton Place, but I guess, I think that's something maybe I need to make very clear moving forward. It should be if an event is happening, event organizers in the vendors only because they're the latest to leave the premises, hence why they will use their vehicles in our actual car park demise. We don't want large deliveries being offloaded on Peyton Place. That's not our intention. Um, and just to highlight some of the, you know, concerns around, um, we were promised local use and it's a wider community using it, not the locals. The reality is we are working very hard to attract and make the space suitable for the locals. The premises license, believe it or not, actually allows us to do that. The way that a venue will be able to do localized programming is by having the income from the licensable activities to support those local artists, to support those local performers. It goes hand in hand. The wider community does not require that because they're doing large, um, events that don't require the ticketing and don't require the income from that. So it's counterproductive to not have it and be able to deliver on that promise that you will see more localized programming happening in the venue. So it's really important to just highlight that point. Um, um, another thing that has been brought up as well is, um, how are we going to manage the, the patrons from, um, smoking outside and how is that going to be enforceable? One of the ways that the premises licensing enhances our capacity, we're going to be forced to have 50 patrons for one security that gives us more support, more staffing support to allow us to create those greater controls. I don't think it's impossible to do. I think it's very achievable to, to, to do that. Um, but it needs more resources. And that comes from having a license that gives us the ability to generate a bit more income to deliver that result. Um, any other point that I need to address regarding the noise leakage? I think I, I, I, I'm not privy to where every resident lives and the impacts on their homes. All I ask is if there's a possibility to collaborate where I'm able to do some decibel readings or you're able to send them to me, I will do my very best to find ways to make your lives. I don't want to disturb your right to a peaceful environment. That's not my intention. I didn't decide to take on the borough hall and, you know, spend our family savings to put this project together and be a nuisance to the community. My intention here is to do something that hopefully I'll be awarded for one day. So, you know, it's counterintuitive. If you're unhappy, it's, it actually ruins any goodwill that I'm trying to get from this project. Um, and it's really important to understand this type of building is very expensive to run. You know, the, I won't go into the financials, but the costs on me is, is eye-watering and our ability to mix community with the wider use is essential to be able to survive. It's not a, a greed thing. It's not something that we're doing because we're greedy. We need it to survive. So there needs to be a balance. I do appreciate Greenwich Dance Academy might have had a different business model, but I am open to collaborators. I'm open to local use. We've made free use of the prop for property to local schools already. Money's not our objective here. We just need to find a balance that works and allow us to stay open. Thank you. Could I thank you, uh, Philemon and particularly want to thank all those residents because I appreciate it's, uh, um, I appreciate it. It's obviously very important, uh, for all of you to, to live with peace and tranquility and to, um, you know, uh, uh, obviously what we have to look at, though obviously obviously look at the licensing objectives, um, in terms of the application and the statutory, uh, framework that we operate in. Um, uh, but there's a lot of evidence that's been presented today that we will have to go away and, uh, consider, uh, it, and obviously bearing in mind the licensing, um, objectives and the, uh, policy that we have. Um, so could I thank everyone very much, uh, for their contributions this morning and their written contributions. Uh, we are now going to discuss those and, uh, reach a decision. Um, and then obviously we'll be in touch with you, uh, with the decision. There is a right of appeal if you're not happy with that decision to the, uh, magistrates court. Um, so we should be in touch within, uh, five days. Um, um, okay. Well, thank you very much everyone. And, uh, again, wish, uh, every