Postcode lottery on licensing policies
Hosts face a postcode lottery over the amount of paperwork they will have to cope with when making licence applications.
A survey of 112 draft local authority licensing policies has found a huge variation in the size and complexity of the documents.
They vary from just five pages at Wychavon District Council to 79 pages at Newcastle upon Tyne. Including appendices, Wakefield's policy tops the list with a whopping 114 pages. The average length is 26 pages, or 37 including appendices.
Licensees who want to vary a licence or apply for a new licence will have to get to grips with the various policies, which cover a range of areas, including saturation policies, opening hours and crime and disorder issues.
Hosts may need solicitors to understand the longer and more complex policies, warned the British Beer & Pub Association (BBPA), which carried out the study.
The BBPA said some policies go beyond the scope of the Licensing Act. The lengthy policy of Blaby, in Leicestershire, for example, even covers issues such as allowing dogs on the premises - and keeping a torch behind the bar.
BBPA chief executive Rob Hayward said: "If councils like Bromsgrove can keep their licensing policy to just seven pages, it is a mystery why others are so long and cover such a vast range of issues.
"Some councils seem to want to micro-manage their local pubs, yet it was never the intention of the Licensing Act to allow councils to introduce such complexity into their licensing policies.
"Some of these policies will create future bureaucratic burdens for pub companies and licensees."
Draft licensing policies will need to be ratified by councils before going live early next year.
Big variation in policy length
The BBPA noted large variations in the length of policies between neighbouring councils.
For example, Bromsgrove's policy has just seven pages, compared to Birmingham on 41 pages including appendices, and next-door Dudley at 70 pages.
Swindon's draft policy runs to just 13 pages, while in neighbouring Vale of the White Horse, the document is 88 pages including appendices.
'Not All Petty Bureaucrats'
The licensing boss at a council with one of the longest draft policies has defended the document.
The licensing officer, who declined to be named, said: "The shorter the policy, the less information the applicant has to go on. I agree that they appear too long, but they have to cover a whole range of issues.
"Ours is long at the start because it goes into some detail about how the council is trying to integrate its work with other departments. People can see who they need to contact and what they need to take into consideration.
"Some say there's not enough detail, some say there's too much detail. We can't keep everyone happy. We are not all petty bureaucrats. Some of us have run businesses before. Ours will probably be reduced so it probably won't be one of the longest."
