The District Council is going to take over responsibility for licensing premises that are used to supply alcohol or provide hot food and drink between 11pm and 5am. This obviously includes pubs and late-night burger-vans etc. The council will also be involved with regulating club and places that need entertainment licenses.
Ever wondered how may pubs there are in the district? There are 45! Plus 37 off-licences; 19 licensed restaurants and 12 licensed clubs. There are also 34 places licensed for public entertainment and 27 premises with a Club Registration Certificate.
The council has a draft policy that is available for public comment until October 29th. You can view it on the council’s website and make your comments by email to licensing@rochford.gov.uk .
However the policy document is fairly heavy going – all 42 pages of it! . One of the important bits is about how a lot of pubs in one area could have a cumulative effect on public nuisance etc. The policy document says:
1.34 The Council acknowledges that a concentration of licensed premises in a particular area can result in an increased number of people walking through or congregating in streets during the night with the potential impact of an increase in crime, anti-social behaviour, noise pollution and other disturbance to residents, together with an increase in littering or fouling. In such cases the amenity of local residents can be placed under severe pressure but may not be attributable to any individual premises.
– and just when you might have expected some dramatic, tough policy about this in the next paragraph, it then goes on to say that there doesn’t seem to be one of these areas at the moment,but in future residents could make representations about this – by complaints or petitions etc.