Councils have to be consistent says legal expert Peter Coulson

My article last week about Westminster Council's licence conditions has provoked widespread comment from readers in all parts of the country.

They report similar old-fashioned restrictions being put forward by their local councils, including 20-minutes drinking-up time and a requirement to clear the premises after the end of 'permitted hours'.

What has clearly happened is that local authorities have been misled into thinking whole sections of the Licensing Act 1964 can be 'imported' on to converted licences, rather than a new regime taking over.

This flies in the face of logic in many instances, but when you have an opinion from a barrister to back you, then I suppose you think it must be right.

This opinion has been attacked from many directions, but until the matter is tested in the higher courts, there will continue to be councils which impose the 'old' rules on licences.

Some, after protest, have agreed to drop the more controversial ones, such as no under-14s in the bar (which has been specifically abolished by the Licensing Act 2003, incidentally, and was discussed at length in Parliament).

But there have been others which have just taken the lawyer's view at face value and, without further debate, included a swathe of old legislation on their converted licences.

More will come, because as I have continued to report, there are still a great many licensees waiting to see exactly what their licences say. At least three areas of the country have not issued any licences at all yet, so it is impossible to predict how many of them will contain these restrictive conditions.

What this scenario shows is that, contrary to Government predictions, there is no consistency about the operation of the new system throughout the country, with one local authority taking a different approach from another, depending on the prevailing wind.

The lack of overall guidance, coupled with many of them flying by the seats of their pants, has left hosts and operators scratching their heads, and wondering how much management time is still to be taken up with licensing issues.

Yet consistency was the watchword. There was far more consistency with the justices in the last few years, as a matter of fact, due to a document called the Good Practice Guide.

Where is the local authority guide that I requested on this page more than two years ago? Nobody knows.