Norwich Green Party has organised a public meeting to discuss ways of lobbying the City Council to make up for the errors it has made when consulting residents about late licence applications. Last month, the City Council’s Licensing Section announced that it had been giving residents incorrect deadlines for returning consultation forms about late licence applications for pubs in their area. In each case, the deadlines it should have set were two to four weeks earlier than the ones it did set. The Licensing Section said it would only accept comments for consideration that were received by the earlier deadlines – even though, in some cases, this was before the Council had informed residents of the late licence applications! As a result, the views of many local residents on late licence applications for scores of pubs across the city have not been taken into account.

In the eight cases where no objections were received by the earlier deadlines, the late licence applications have been granted automatically without discussion. This includes the applications for the Rose Valley Tavern, Micawber’s Tavern, the Champion and the Plasterer’s Arms. It would also have included the Garden House were it not for the fact that the pub itself advertised the incorrect deadline in its window and therefore invalidated the consultation process. (The Garden House application has been rejected by the Council on technical grounds but the pub is expected to appeal and Magistrates will then decide whether to hold a hearing on the application themselves or whether to send it back to the Council for a hearing.)

The Green Party had been writing letters to residents when a consultation process was underway for a late licence application in their area. The consultation letters being sent out by the Council were only to people living in the immediate vicinity of the pub, and we wanted to ensure that anyone who might be affected by a late opening knew how to submit their views.

The Council gave us (as well as residents) incorrect deadlines for most consultations taking place in July and August and, as a result, our letters contained the wrong deadlines. When the Council realised it had made this error, councillors received information about a large number of applications after the correct consultation deadlines had passed. Annoyingly, we were therefore unable to issue consultation letters on these pubs. The Council is confident that there have been no errors in the consultations taking place from late August onwards, and we have recently started to issue our own consultation letters again for new applications.

Another error made by the Council was in calculating the time period during which (under central government legislation) a decision on an application had to be made. As a result, some applications submitted earlier on in the process were rejected on technical grounds (such as the Belle Vue). Magistrates are likely to refer these applications back to the Council for consideration, and so the likely effect is that the hearing and decision-making process will be delayed for about two months. For information on the latest situation on any particular pub’s application, please see www.norwich.gov.uk or contact the City Council’s Licensing Section on (01603) 212760/1/2 or licensing@norwich.gov.uk. Alternatively, you can contact us (details above).

The Green Councillors are calling on the Council to either start the affected consultation processes again or to simply accept for consideration all the comments received by the earlier deadlines. We appreciate that the Licensing Section made an honest mistake, and that the large number of applications received in recent weeks have put the section under enormous pressure. However, we feel that it is vital that residents are given a full opportunity to influence the decision-making process when a pub in their area applies for a late licence.

We are very unhappy that the LibDems (who, as the biggest party, run the Council’s ruling Executive) have decided to support the Licensing Section’s view that comments received before the original, publicised deadlines, and written in good faith, should be ruled out of order if received after the new, earlier deadlines. We know that late licences could have a real effect on the well-being and quality of life of residents, and it was clearly the intention of the government legislation to allow residents the opportunity to object and comment on applications.

There are some things you can do to help us lobby the Council:

Attend the public meeting we have organised for Wednesday to discuss the way forward. One plan of action we will discuss at this meeting is a mass protest at the full City Council meeting on Tuesday 27th September, 7:30pm at City Hall. This meeting is open to the public. We would encourage you to attend, and on Wednesday we will inform residents how they can submit questions to the meeting and invite ideas for the questions that the Green Councillors should ask to the Council’s Executive.

Complain to the relevant Council officers: John Jones (johnjones@norwich.gov.uk) and Ian Streeter (ianstreeter@norwich.gov.uk) and also to Ian Couzens, the LibDem Leader of the Council (i.couzens@cllr.norwich.gov.uk), and Diane Hume, the LibDem Chair of the Licensing Committee (d.hume@cllr.norwich.gov.uk). If you have no access to the internet, then you can write to any of these people at Norwich City Council, City Hall, St. Peter Street, Norwich, NR2 1NH.

Keep a record of any trouble associated with the pub in question over the next few months. The new licences come into affect towards the end of November. After this time, if you can show deterioration in public order, public safety, quality of life or child safety, associated with the new opening hours, then you will have a very strong case for getting the Licensing Committee to review the late licence for the pub in question. Such a review could take place as early as December 2005. Requests for the reviews of such licences should be made to the Council’s Licensing Section from December. We would be happy to help residents make such requests.

The Green Party is not opposed to late licensing in all cases. Staggered closing times in city centre outlets might help reduce the problems associated with ’11 o’clock crowding’. However, we believe that it is vital that residents have the opportunity to object to late licence applications. In November, the Council adopted its Licensing Policy (against which applications are being judged). At that time, the Green City Councillors proposed a policy of presuming against late licence applications in residential areas. Unfortunately, LibDem and Labour Councillors voted down this proposal.

Please do get in touch with us if you would like to discuss this matter.

Yours sincerely