Agenda item - Chair's Communications

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Agenda item

Chair's Communications

Minutes:

24.1      The Chair provided the following communications:

 

As stated previously I want to an excellent Licensing Conference at the LGA and it dealt with a number of issues related to the domain of the Licensing Committee.

The first relevant item on the agenda at the conference was an up-date from the House of Lords Select Committee dealing with the Licensing Act of 2003. As the Select Committee has not come to any decisions yet there was little to find out except that we should know by the autumn about any changes to the terms of the Night Time levy. I would imagine the Committee will discuss this

at either the Committee in November or in March. It also appears highly likely that Public Health will be introduced as the 5th Licensing Objective.  Of course, in Brighton and Hove, Public Health already plays a role in decisions about licensing policy and is also referred to when Licensing panels are dealing with applications.

There was also a very good presentation on 'Managing the Night -time Economy' and an excellent one on how Cornwall County Council are dealing with hot spots such as Newquay.  There was an excellent presentation on how they are using information from a number of agencies to 'map' problem areas. I will arrange for Committee members to receive copies of the presentations as they are very helpful.

Along with Councillors' Wares and Deane recently attended a workshop looking at all of the agencies involved in Managing the Night-time economy. This was a first-class workshop as it brought together all the different agencies for the first time and looked closely at what they did.  Representatives from Safe Space were there and provided a real insight into how they work and they obviously save other services such as SECAMB, Accident  and Emergency etc. a large amount of money by providing the service that they do. I am delighted that The Red Cross has now agreed to continue supplying volunteers from the Red Cross to help run Safe Space. There was uncertainty previously because of a major re-organisation of the Red Cross nationally.

Chief Inspector Chris Veale spoke about the role of the police in the Night-time Economy and what a challenge to is to organise, especially at certain times of the year such as New Year, Halloween and during the Pride Festival.

Representatives from the team who run the Beach Buggy Patrolspoke about the services that they offer and the work that they do in ensuring that the beach area is a safe place to be. This was impressive and I hadn't realised before that most of the people who work on the Beach Buggy patrol are volunteers from the Coastguard Service, thus they are highly experienced in what they do.

The main question that came out of the workshop was about funding for keeping people safe in the city in the night-time economy, mainly a on Fridays and Saturdays and how we might develop the means to have a continuing overview of what is being done and how to make improvements.

I also received a large number of letters from residents in the North Lane area and also from residents in Brunswick. These letters were asking for a review of cafe bars being allowed in the CIZ area via the matrix. I have discussed this situation with a number of officers and it has been agreed that that licensing officers will ensure that the CIZ area is paramount in any applications for a cafe bar license and that applicants will be made fully aware of the CIZ truly means as there still seems to be an incomplete understanding of the CIZ policy from some applicants. Officers are continuing to monitor the situation to assess when or if any changes need to be made to the position of cafe bars within the   Matrix.

 


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