Westminster hails court wins

Westminster Council is hailing its controversial 'stress zones' policy after licensing victories in the magistrates' court.

But Morning Advertiser legal expert Peter Coulson said the three 'victories' should not be seen as validation of the stress zones policy.

Coulson said the judgements were based on issues unconnected to the stress area.

In all, four appeals went to court and three were dismissed by magistrates.

In addition, 28 appeals against council rulings were withdrawn by operators before going to court.

Stress zones​Westminster Council has created three 'stress areas', in which it believes there should be no new licenses and no extensions to hours due to saturation.

Cllr Audrey Lewis, Westminster City Council Cabinet Member for Licensing, said:

"We always thought that the strength of the Licensing Act would be the success or not of the appeals process.​

"Judging by the number of licensees who have withdrawn their appeals the message is clearly getting out that Westminster's stress area policy is solid and will not be easily overturned". I think it's a bit rich to turn around and say winning three cases justifies its policy​MA Legal expert Peter Coulson

However, Coulson said: "None of these three appeal cases are anything much to do with Westminster's overall licensing policy.​"What Westminster doesn't say is there are another 380 cases lined up behind these ones. I think it's a bit rich to turn around and say winning three cases justifies its policy."​

The trade argues that stress areas go against the Licensing Act which says each case must be looked at on an individual basis.

The three cases where the Council won costs were:

Cirque​To convert existing licences to a premises licence.Stringfellows​Application to extend the terminal hour on Monday to Saturday to 6am.Groucho Club​ Refused an increase in capacity.

Coulson said these applications would have faced difficulty regardless of stress zones.

Stringfellows had applied for a very late licence until 6am and concerns were raised about disorder at Cirque, Coulson said.

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