The legal experts issued freedom of information requests to more than 180 licensing authorities in order to ascertain the effects of The Act.
Of the licensing authorities asked, 80 replied to a question about many TENs had been objected to by the police or environmental health?
TENs issuing shouldn’t be taken for granted
The results revealed 932 TENs had been objected to, of which 270 (28.9%) proceeded to a hearing.
Poppleston Allen said the others would have been withdrawn or an agreement reached, almost half (47.4%) of the 270 were issued, 52.6% of the 270 were not issued.
Poppleston Allen managing partner Jonathan Smith said: “We need to be a little careful about drawing any average figures here since one London council accounted for 409 of the objections alone, but it does demonstrate that the issuing of TENs shouldn’t be taken for granted.
“A considerable number were withdrawn or agreement reached (more than 70%), so only just under 30% proceeded to a hearing upon an onjection being received from the environmental health officer or police.
A ‘light touch’ process
He added: “What is encouraging is that of those TENs that went to a hearing, clearly the person issuing the TEN was confident they would succeed with the notice and the committee issued the TEN.
“This would be testament to the fact that a TEN was meant to be a ‘light touch’ process and of course, a TEN only applies for a limited period.
“It is also worthy of note that most council’s statement of licensing policies do not include TENs within the scope of their cumulative impact policies and, therefore, there is not the presumption to refuse the TEN as there is with the application for a new licence or extension of hours or increase in capacity.”