Councils fear licensing meltdown

Half of local authorities do not believe they have sufficient resources to cope when they take control of licensing.

Specialist lobbying company PPS Group carried out a survey of 60 local authorities during the last week of October to discover what preparations have been made ahead of the new licensing regulations - which will come under their remit from September next year.

Senior account director David Gold told delegates at The Publican's Property, Planning & Design Conference on Thursday that half of these councils said they didn't have enough resources to cope with the new responsibility of licensing.

Whereas 35 per cent answered that they had "insufficient resources" to take control of licensing, 15 per cent said they "had not nearly enough" resources to cope. Only 1.7 per cent said they had "more than sufficient resources" and 45 percent said their resources "were adequate".

And a quarter (25 per cent) of local authorities interviewed said that they thought the new regime gave councillors the opportunity to control pubs in their area. Just less than another quarter (23 per cent) said they thought this was "possible", whereas 35 percent said this would "definitely not" be the case.

Mr Gold said that these weren't the only problems for licensees. He added: "The pitfalls for operators are that politicisation is going to become an issue. There will also be a scramble for the latest opening hours - no-one will want to be the first to close and no-one will want to be the last to close either. If a few local residents kick up enough of a fuss that's all it will take for that councillor to change his/her policy. It doesn't matter if 75 per cent of residents are for your pub if a dozen or so people who always voted for that politician say they won't at the next election."

But Mr Gold did have some valuable advice on how operators could overcome these problems. He said: "Councillors see this as a new power and many intend to use it. The best way of combating local opposition is to find some local support and get them to come along and show their support to the local councillors. The knowledge of the local political situation is absolutely crucial."