Licensing chaos is being swept under the carpet

I have doubts that all the venom currently being targeted at local councils in respect of the Licensing Act is properly aimed. There is, in my opinion, a logic in a "one-stop-shop" for local licensing. Regrettably, once this idea had been conceived logic went out of the window.

I will immediately mention that I am an elected member serving on a rural district council. I am also a licensee and I have made a point of following this piece of legislation from its inception to today's reported traumas. What I am not in the business of doing is defending local government ­ rather, the opposite. I scrutinise my local authority's decision making and comment as appropriate.

I have yet to come across one local authority (I have a reasonable network) that would not have orchestrated this huge change differently, had any choice been offered.

The Government's guidance has been shambolic and it is here that many, if not all, the faults lie. It has been late, duplicitous and open to a variety of different interpretations which has led to some of the current issues. Finally, it has been shoved under the wire to take it out of the political arena at a very important time, leaving nobody to answer any of the current queries.

Given that the guidance is open to different interpretations, that form-filling is not a normal requirement of a licensee, that the licence charge (not determined by local authorities but set by Government) has gone up by many hundreds of per cent, that there is an "apparent" financial benefit for making a close-to-deadline application and that the workload for local authorities is creating a massive spike of effort for a short period, I can well understand the frustration on both sides.

Chris Parkin

Proprietor

The Carlton Lodge

Bondgate

Helmsley

North Yorkshire

Base Sky subscriptions on rateable values

I believe the best system for setting Sky subscriptions would be a "penny in the pound" rateable value system where a premises' rateable value would be multiplied by a set multiplier (in the same way that business rates are actually charged).

Everyone would have their own charge, as opposed to the current system where it is possible to be paying the same price as premises with a rateable value that's double yours. However, if this system is adopted by Sky it would have to ensure the multiplier is set at a fair amount.

Douglas Stoneley-Hulme

The Antelope

18 Manchester Road

Kearsley

Bolton

Lancashire

Police can punish parents of under-age drinkers

EB Cant, The Colliers, Skewen, Neath, asked in the letters column, Morning Advertiser, 21 April 2005, why the police cannot be taken to task for not taking action against under-age drink offenders and their parents. He asks why parents cannot see anything wrong with under-age drinking. In the circumstance he outlines, there appears to be cause for consideration by the police of the offence of aiding and abetting an offence. Or perhaps inciting (or soliciting) a misdemeanour at Common Law, whether the offence has been committed or not. (That is, of course, unless these offences have been repealed since I was made aware of them.)

Graham McIntosh FBII

White Hart Inn

Hawkwell

Essex

The staggering true cost of all those applications

Here's a thought: I have just completed my new licence application ­ the one that used to involve paying £10 to the magistrates and signing a form.

The new deregulated, simplified system has run to 22 pages of A4. Eight copies are required ­ that is 176 A4 sheets of paper. Let's say there are 190,000 pubs that need to do this, that's 33 million sheets of A4 paper.

It has cost me about £300 in council fees alone, being only a small pub, so let's say the average pub payment is £500. That's £95m being paid to councils by the pub trade. For all those pubs that need to use a solicitor for the application, based on the average cost being quoted in this area, that's a further £66.5m. We must be one of the biggest growth sectors in the country.

Terry Leedham

Landlord/owner

The Lamb & Flag

Nuneaton

Warwickshire

Helpful authorities made premises licence easy

The trade press is full of criticism over the conduct of local councils with applications under the new Licensing Act 2003. I am pleased to say my experience has been completely the opposite.

I decided to submit, without any professional help, an application for a premises licence and variation to Lambeth Council for our pub, the Belle Vue, in Clapham, South London.

A few days later I received a call from the council to tell me they had received my application but that there were one or two queries ­ the main one being that I had not marked all the fire equipment on the plans. They then suggested visiting me on the premises so that all outstanding issues could be resolved. This I readily accepted and two very helpful council officials spent an hour with me when we dotted the i's and crossed the t's on my application.

Our local fire officer has inspected the premises and was equally helpful and full of advice on some of the small things we were doing wrong. A telephone conversation with the police helped to sort out a minor concern they had with our application.

All in all the process has been far less daunting than I envisaged but thanks must go to all the authorities involved, who seem anxious to be as helpful as possible. I do, however, urge licensees to get their applications in as soon as possible because once they start flooding in there will be no alternative, due to pressure of time, but for the authorities to reject those which are incorrect.

Sean Hall-Smith

Managing Director

Sabretooth Vintners

The Belle Vue

1 Clapham Common South Side

South London