Meeting documents

Consideration was given to the minutes of the meetings of the Licensing Committee held on 28 April 2005 and 1 June 2005 (copies previously circulated and retained with the official copy of the minutes).

It was noted that Councillor Palmer's apology for the meeting on 1 June 2005 was not recorded in the minutes.

The Head of Administration advised that following an event held at Police Headquarters on 26 May 2005, attended by Councillors P A Hyde, J T Male and G Tacey, statistics had been quoted referring to an increase in violent crime in the North area and therefore it had deemed appropriate for these statistics to be considered by the Licensing Committee as a majority of such cases were associated with alcohol.

... Circulated at the meeting was a report produced by Inspector Nigel Banks, Licensing Inspector at Force HQ which identified violent crime in Coalville and Ashby de la Zouch and gave a commentary as to the timing of such incidents (copy attached to the official copy of the minutes). Inspectors Ramsey (Coalville LPU Commander) and Straughan (Ashby LPU Commander) were in attendance to give a local perspective to these statistics.

Inspector Ramsey referred to the statistics held locally and stated that from 1 January 2005 to the present day there had been 10 incidents recorded as public order offences. As for violent crime, he regarded the Litten Tree a "hot spot" with 39 incidents recorded since the start of the year. However, these recorded incidents tended not to be the fault of the management of the Litten Tree and indeed he was impressed with that establishment's arrangements in dealing with such issues, including CCTV cover, keeping the necessary logs and being part of the Retail Radio Scheme. Inspector Ramsey indicated that the throughput of that establishment on a Thursday night averaged 500 people, 700 people on a Friday night and 870 people on a Saturday night, attendance was held at 370 persons at any one time. He also indicated that some of the statistics referred to were domestic related, not stranger assaults.

He also referred to initiatives taking place in Marlborough Square concerning the taxi rank with a view to ensuring that the rank was available for use and taxis being able to get drinkers away as quickly as possible.

He also advised that some types of incident which now appeared in the record had previously not been recorded.

Inspector Ramsey then took questions from members including some not directly related to alcohol related violence.

Inspector Straughan then addressed the meeting as to the situation in Ashby and indicated that he had been in post since May 2005 and he too had examined local figures from Beat 29 which covered an area greater than Market Street, Ashby. He concurred with the north area statistics that public order offences tended to occur on a Friday, Saturday and Sunday night, the most prevalent time being 9.00pm to 3.00am and peaking at certain times during that period.

He confirmed that during the past 17 months the following offences related with alcohol had been recorded for Market Street and the immediate surrounding area:

Type of offence Number of recorded offences
Grievous Bodily Harm 8
Actual Bodily Harm 61
Common Assault 21
Personal Assault 34
Assault on Police 5

He advised that in relation to the licensed premises themselves he had met with Pubwatch members and his view was that the premises in Ashby were run in an orderly way and they all participated in the Retail Radio Scheme. He felt that the licencees themselves could not be blamed for the antics of drinkers on the street. All doormen on these premises had now been licensed. Inspector Straughan had sought additional funding from the licensees and the breweries to pay for special duties in Ashby but that arrangement had come to nought.

Inspector Straughan also referred to "Operation Banner" which was a north area operation providing for additional resources from other parts of the North Area Force to increase police resource in hot spot locations. It was however the case that proactive initiatives such as this increased the recorded crime figures.

He indicated that his best estimate was that there was up to 1,000 people in these premises on any one night and he felt that the presence of mobile food outlets did not assist the crime and disorder situation as they were a magnet to drinkers congregating which could lead to violence. It was also the case that some of these vans were not always covered by CCTV provision. He also felt that the situation was not aided by the lack of public transportation at peak times which again meant congregation of youths with the potential for violence.

One recent improvement was the use of the Custody Suite at Coalville so it avoided the need for his officers to transport prisoners to Loughborough or Leicester facilities. Clearly he could not afford the loss of officers for long periods of time whilst undertaking this element of their duties.

He indicated that these figures appeared to endorse the need for the previously agreed saturation policy.

Inspector Straughan then answered members' questions and with particular regard to parking abuse outside the Town Hall at Market Street he indicated that he would ask Community Support Officers to look at that situation as part of their duties. Both officers were thanked for their attendance and left the meeting.

This item had been included as an urgent item with the permission of the Chairman in order to consider a situation that had emerged with regard to the Licensing Act 2003 (Hearings) Regulations 2005.

The Head of Administration referred to the fact that Regulation 7 sets out the information that should be included in notices of hearings and in particular "any particular points on which the Authority considers that it will want clarification at the hearing from a party".

By Regulation 2 the authority was defined as the licensing committee or the licensing sub-committee in discharging the function of the authority of holding a hearing.

At a recent training event Roger Butterfield had concurred that this was the case which meant in practical terms that a licensing committee or licensing sub-committee would have to meet to determine what issues required clarification at a licensing hearing from any particular party. In the opinion of the Head of Administration this would be administratively burdensome and suggested that the power to determine and ask for items requiring clarification should be delegated to officers.

After due discussion it was

The Head of Administration advised that the Committee as yet had not given consideration to undertaking premises site visits in connection with hearings under the Licensing Act 2003. The Head of Administration read out some advice from LACORS which stated that "site visits by licensing sub-committee members are generally unnecessary and can put the members and the licensing authority at risk of accusations of bias. If a licensing authority believes that there might be occasions where visits are required then it would be advised to have set out the reasons why this might be the case in local guidance, so that there are clear criteria for justifying any visit, which can be documented. Licensing authorities would also be advised to have clear guidance on how the visits are conducted".

Having heard this advice the Committee was of the opinion that such visits should only take place out of necessity. Given this view the Head of Administration advised that he would endeavour to submit to the next meeting a protocol to govern any such site visits.