Legal advice: Planning committees and high street venues

By David Clifton of thePublican.com's team of legal experts from London solicitors Joelson Wilson.​

At Easter, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister published the long-awaited planning policy statement entitled "Positive planning for town centres: a plan-led approach".

That document set out policies for retail and leisure uses in town centres. Particularly relevant provisions affecting the high street operators in the licensed industry include the following:

• Local planning authorities should prepare planning policies to encourage a range of evening and night-time economy uses which appeal to a wide range of age and social groups, ensuring that provision is made for a range of leisure activities including public houses, bars and nightclubs.
• In drawing up such policies, local planning authorities should consider the scale of leisure developments they wish to encourage and their likely impact, including issues of cumulative impact, anti-social behaviour, crime and the effect on local residents.
• The planning policies should take account of, and complement, local authorities' statements of licensing policy and the promotion of the licensing objectives under the Licensing Act 2003.
• Local authorities should consider developing a local strategy for the evening and night-time economy which tackles such issues as anti-social behaviour and crime prevention, together with adequate late-night transport provision to support such activities.

I have spoken about this to Helen Pratt, a partner in the planning consultancy firm Planning Potential, which specialises in planning issues affecting the pub industry.

She commented: "I suspect we will see more policies emerging that refer to superpubs and provide floor area-based criteria for the consideration of planning applications for new venues."

What does seem clear is that the new licensing legislation will see much more crossover between planning and licensing issues and it may yet be that the major battle over "need" will be fought out as part of a planning, rather than licensing, application.