Clock is ticking in the race for new licences

race for new licences

There is now just over a month to go until the second appointed day and one or two hosts are beginning to wonder whether or not they will have a new licence in place by then.

The reason for this is the level of outstanding hearings and appeals is very high, even for those who managed to get their applications in before 6 August. They will not completely lose out, of course, because grandfather rights mean at least they will have their existing times and conditions. But those who have had to battle for Part B variations may still be in the throes of the appeals procedure and might not get a decision before 24 November.

Even more serious is the situation for the many thousands who applied after the cut-off point. In this case, there is no absolute guarantee of anything at all. There is no obligation on licensing authorities to stick to a timetable because, under the transition process, and if they are struggling to process a large number of late applications, some may not be granted in time.

There are, of course, some time conditions built into the 2003 Licensing Act and its regulations. The licensing authority is required to hold a hearing, where there have been representations, within 20 working days of the end of the statutory representation period, which is 28 days.

However, if authorities do not hold a hearing, the only recourse for the applicant is to the magistrates, and this will take extra time. Because of the number of appeals to magistrates already lodged, there is certainly no guarantee such a hearing will be able to take place in the next month.

All this means there will most certainly be outlets without a new premises licence on the second appointed day and they will have to close for business until matters can be sorted out.

It is difficult at this stage to put figures on it, but it could run into hundreds and possibly more than 1,000 throughout England and Wales.

The other problem is temporary event notices (TENs) are only of limited use in such circumstances. Under the current system, a series of occasional licences could be employed to keep a licence going when it had failed to be renewed, or some other technical problem had occurred. But TENs are not like that, and they cannot be run together anyway.

All this means some licensees may be prepared to compromise on conditions they would not otherwise have accepted, just to get hold of a licence to trade.

It puts the responsible authorities in a strong position, as the threat of a hearing at this late stage could result in a dry period in the run-up to Christmas.

I am not saying this is in the mind of the authorities, most of whom are working hard to process all the applications put before them in good time for the start of the new system. They do not want to be put in the spotlight as killjoys, or even inefficient, although the late application rush made their job very much harder.

But there were several thousand existing licence holders of different kinds who did not apply in time for 6 August and therefore had to make an entirely fresh application, not only for a premises licence but also a personal licence, for which they needed to sit the new BII examination.

All these things take time, so applications were still coming in fairly recently. Those are the ones which may not be finished in time.