Agenda and minutes

Councillor Williamson welcomed everyone to the meeting, asked members and officers to introduce themselves and outlined the procedures for the meeting.

Apologies for absence were received from Councillor Safi Ngongo and Councillor Diarmaid Ward.

Councillor Asima Shaikh substituted for Councillor Safi Ngongo and Councillor Gill substituted for Councillor Ward.

If you have a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest* in an item of business:

§  if it is not yet on the council’s register, you must declare both the existence and details of it at the start of the meeting or when it becomes apparent;

§  you may choose to declare a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest that is already in the register in the interests of openness and transparency. 

In both the above cases, you must leave the room without participating in discussion of the item.

If you have a personal interest in an item of business and you intend to speak or vote on the item you must declare both the existence and details of it at the start of the meeting or when it becomes apparent but you may participate in the discussion and vote on the item.

*(a)     Employment, etc - Any employment, office, trade, profession or vocation carried on for profit or gain.

(b) Sponsorship - Any payment or other financial benefit in respect of your expenses in carrying out duties as a member, or of your election; including from a trade union.

(c) Contracts - Any current contract for goods, services or works, between you or your partner (or a body in which one of you has a beneficial interest) and the council.

(d) Land - Any beneficial interest in land which is within the council’s area.

(e) Licences- Any licence to occupy land in the council’s area for a month or longer.

(f) Corporate tenancies - Any tenancy between the council and a body in which you or your partner have a beneficial interest.

 (g) Securities - Any beneficial interest in securities of a body which has a place of business or land in the council’s area, if the total nominal value of the securities exceeds £25,000 or one hundredth of the total issued share capital of that body or of any one class of its issued share capital. 

This applies to all members present at the meeting.

None.

The order of business was as the agenda.

The licensing officer reported that the application for floors 1-3 was for half an hour less than originally applied for.  It was noted that opening hours for floors 1-3 and the top floor would be to half past midnight and not 3am as stated on the front page of the report.  It was noted that these details had been corrected on the report posted on the website. There was an additional condition proposed to those detailed in appendix 4 of the report regarding the management plan and this was detailed on page 10 in further submissions from the applicant. These submissions would be interleaved with the agenda papers.  Revised plans were circulated to members which included the roof terrace.  It was noted that the Peabody Trust residents had asked one of the interested parties to represent their views.

The Chair confirmed that both sides would have ten minutes to present their case and stated that the members had read all the papers.

The licensing authority raised concerns regarding the increase in capacity, up to 1000 additional people.  It was stated that information regarding dispersal had not been received and the draft management plan was an old document.  No operator had been confirmed. The premises were in a cumulative impact area and there was a concern regarding the impact of customers leaving the premises and the use of the outside areas.

Two residents spoke against the application at the meeting.  One resident raised concerns about the cumulative impact.  She stated this would have five times the capacity as the current premises and would not be food-led.  The premises were in a residential area.  There would be noise disturbance from smokers and drinkers on the terraces and the premises would be licenced for longer hours than presently.  The management did not intend to operate the premises themselves. They had applied for extended hours with no analysis of noise escape from drinkers inside or from people on the streets.  A large smokers terrace was to be located opposite a resident block. They had applied for unprecedented hours of use.  There had been no analysis of capacity, the number of people entering or leaving the building, the number of smokers, deliveries and parking or additional foot and vehicular traffic. There was nothing in place for anti-social behaviour. They had claimed that 685 people would be using the building.  The current premises had a couple of dozen customers, although it had a registered capacity of 686 persons.  The management for each area was unknown.  The management plan was one year old and lacked specifics.  The applicant claimed that they should be an exception to the cumulative impact policy but had not stated why this should be. They had not tried to address in their application why they would have no adverse impact on the cumulative impact policy.  The exceptions given as an example in the licensing policy were small premises with a 50 person capacity and coffee shops.  This application was a long way from  ...  view the full minutes text for item 111.