This meeting was about whether the committee should approve the draft Statement of Licensing Policy (SoLP) for public consultation. There were no decisions made during the meeting. The report pack for the meeting contains information about why the policy needs to be reviewed, and how it has changed, and includes a copy of the draft policy itself.

Review of Statement of Licensing Policy 2025-2030

The report pack for the meeting explains that, under the Licensing Act 2003 the council is required to review its SoLP every 5 years, and that it must consult publicly on any changes to it.

The Policy must be renewed at least every five years and the current policy ends in October 2025.

The existing policy expires in October 2025, so a consultation on the draft SoLP needs to commence in January 2025 in order for the council to meet this requirement.

Public consultation will look to commence in January 2025. We will look to consult for a period of 8 weeks.

The report pack explains that the draft SoLP has been updated in several ways, including updating several sections to reflect current information, and adding several new sections to the policy:

The draft Statement of Licensing Policy has been made concise for the user, it is locally focused and reflects a wider range of council policies.

New Sections have been added to the SoLP, these include adding a richer and more detailed use of the local Plan, which now has sections on each town centre reflected within the SoLP.

The report pack includes a summary of the changes that have been made to the policy. These include:

• Updating the Community Safety section to reflect new policies
• Updating the partnership working section
• Updating the Public Health section
• Updating the Pavement Licence section
• Updating the Public Space Protection Order¹ section
• Adding an Equalities Act 2010 section
• Adding an Immigration section
• Adding a Counter Terrorism section
• Adding a section about the Local Plan² for the borough
• Adding a section about Drugs in licensed premises
• Adding a section about Spiking and welfare in licensed premises
• Adding a section about Outdoor and major events
• Adding an Agent of change³ section
• Adding a Film Classification section.

The appendices of the report pack contain detailed information about the new policy, and the consultation.

Cumulative Impact Assessment

The report pack asks the committee to approve a Cumulative Impact Assessment (CIA) research report for public consultation. The Licensing Act 2003 requires councils to review their CIAs every three years.

"The Cumulative Impact Assessment (CIA) was last reviewed in 2022 and published in 2023. It covers three cumulative impact areas:

  Hounslow Town centre
  Heston
  Cranford

It has been revisited as part of the review of the Statement of Licensing Policy."

The CIA research report contains a summary of the evidence that the council has gathered to determine whether there is an over-concentration of licensed premises in Hounslow Town Centre, Heston or Cranford. This includes information about the number and type of licensed premises in those areas, police statistics about crime, information from the London Ambulance Service (LAS), and observations of street drinking locations in each of the areas. The report also discusses two other locations in the borough: Feltham and Chiswick, for which there have been concerns about over-concentrations of licensed premises.