Agenda item

Report of the Executive Director (Interim), Environment.

The Committee received a report of the Executive Director (Interim) Environment, on the Delegated decisions of the Executive Director Environment pertaining to premises licences.

Members raised concerns over the length of the condition, as these made it difficult for those who wanted to check a premises compliance when calling in and wondered whether all of the conditions were necessary. Concerns were also raised regarding the Police Constables who had to also read these conditions out and enforce them, as these most be clear and compliable. The Committee noted that some of the conditions were offered by the applicant, which explained why they looked differently to some of the standard conditions. However, the team had worked hard and in collaboration with Members of the Committee at the workshop to look at these, which should hopefully be more concise and reasonable set of pool conditions to be presented at the next Committee meeting.

Members raised the discrepancy in the number of conditions of some premises, as some premises such as Galaxy restaurant had 20 conditions and others like Bandaloop had one. It was asked if officers were offered these numerous conditions whether they may suggest to the applicant to restrict to those that were most needed, which was noted by officers. Members also raised that it would not be appropriate for officers to start picking which conditions were relevant as applicants often offer these to resolve any potential objections that may arise, and it was suggested that it would be wiser to make the existing pool of conditions clear. Members also asked that when the proposal comes to Committee with the changes to the conditions that these are done in marked mode so Members can see changes easily and be able to comment. The Chair assured the Committee that this was to be the case.

Members asked if the department gathered all the noise complaints coming into the Corporation. This was often raised in hearings by residents who would have submitted complains but the environmental health officers would not have a record of these. A Member had raised a complaint about a premise which was located in the City of London, Oyster Shed as they had received complaints, and they could not see their complaint as part of the logs. Members noted that the team are usually thorough in recording noise complaints which come through in a number of ways, such as emails, the contact us form and through the out of hours noise line, however the list provided in the report only went up to the 24^th of August. Officers would take this away as some data was missing and this would be circulated to Members shortly after the meeting.

RESOLVED – That the report be noted.