The Licensing Committee received the Late-Night Levy Annual Report, discussed the role of Operation Nightsafe and the new Operation Leuctra, noted that discussion of the Draft Culture Strategy would be deferred to a future meeting, and received and discussed a guidance note about the relationship between planning and licensing.

Late-Night Levy

The Committee discussed the Late-Night Levy Annual Report 2022 to 2023, which described the activities funded by the Late Night Levy, paid by venues licenced to sell alcohol after midnight.

The income from the Levy is pooled by the Council and the Metropolitan Police Service to fund Operation Nightsafe. Operation Nightsafe is delivered by Parkguard, which provides a team of four SIA¹-accredited officers to patrol the borough four nights a week. The team provides a first point of contact for licenced premises and works to prevent incidents escalating and requiring police or ambulance attendance.

The report also included information about a new initiative, Operation Leuctra. Operation Leuctra deploys additional police officers, usually between two and five, every Friday and Saturday night to address crime and anti-social behaviour hotspots in the borough.

Members discussed the diversity of the Parkguard team, the use of intelligence in tasking the team and how that intelligence is shared with other council services. It was noted that the intelligence gathered by Parkguard had been used in licence review hearings and even to support the refusal of new licence applications.

Members noted that, while intelligence is shared with the police and other council services, the raw data from Parkguard patrols is not routinely provided to Licensing Sub Committees when they consider applications. Councillor Diarmaid Ward, the Executive Member for Community Safety, agreed to review the audit process to see how that data could be used in future to provide better evidence to support decision-making.

Planning and Licensing

The Committee received a Guidance Note about the relationship between Planning and Licensing. The note summarises the legal framework for decision-making and provides advice to members about how to use their judgement to assess applications when the requested licensable activities do not appear to align with the planning permission for the premises.

The guidance note suggests that, where an application is received that is not aligned with planning permission, the committee should seek to understand the applicant's intention and assess whether the applicant has a realistic plan to reconcile the difference. The note also suggests that, in cases where planning permission is unclear, the committee may wish to give additional weight to more recent permissions when assessing applications.

Finally, the Chair thanked the Council's Chief Litigation Lawyer, who will retire at the end of April, for her work supporting the Licensing Committee.