Agenda and draft minutes

Councillor Heather Staff welcomed everyone to the meeting and officers and members introduced themselves.  The procedure for the conduct of the meeting was outlined.

Apologies for absence were received from Councillor Gary Heather. The Chair advised that Councillor Heather had stood down from the meeting as he had expressed a view about a previous application for Nags Head Market.

Councillor Roulin Khondoker substituted for Councillor Gary Heather.

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.

Councillor Heather stepped down from the meeting as he had previously expressed a view about the item on the agenda.  

The order of business would be as the agenda.

RESOLVED:

That the minutes of the meeting held on 27 June 2024 be confirmed as an accurate record of proceedings and the Chair be authorised to sign them.

The licensing officer reported that an additional bundle had been circulated from the applicant which included an updated schedule of conditions. Copies of the hatch plan had been tabled. The Sub-Committee noted that the objector was unable to attend the meeting. There had been no objections from the noise team and an acoustic report was satisfied.  There were no objections from the planning department.

The applicants’ representative stated that this was a food hall and community space during the day. Modest hours had been requested in June 2023 and it was accepted that they may ask for a slight extension of hours after a year. The premises had opened in August 2023 and there had been no incidence of crime, anti-social behaviour or noise nuisance. The premises would be food led and enjoyed mainly by families enjoying food. The applicant was asking for an extension by one hour on Friday and Saturday and would be closing at 10.30pm.  These hours were well within policy hours outlined in licensing policy 6. He stated that the Licensing Policy outlined that variations would be given more favourable consideration. The additional hours were unlikely to have an adverse impact on the area. Amendments to the conditions were better suited to the business and were customer friendly. There were no objections by the responsible authorities. Councillor Heather had made no objections. Moving onto the conditions he advised that, regarding condition 1, this would remain except for a proposal to allow 20 customers seated who were waiting for a meal. He advised that it was very common for customers to wait for friends and currently the conditions did not allow that they could have a drink while waiting. It was proposed that condition 17 would be deleted and condition 18 reworded as decibels had been approved by the noise team. Condition 39, which had been agreed by the police, to be reworded for a minimum of two door supervisors on Friday and Saturday. This number to be risk assessed if needed. Regarding condition 45, it was proposed to have a personal licence holder on busy nights. He advised that on other nights a personal licence holder would be available at the end of a telephone.

Paragraph 56 in the licensing policy outlined possible exceptions to the cumulative impact policy. He advised that possible exceptions which applied to this application would be that the premises were not alcohol led, the hours requested were within framework hours, they provided cultural activities, were a community centre and would implement matchday controls.

In response to questions, it was advised that they hoped that the extra hour would bring in more customers and meet customer expectations and help make the business profitable. Conditions currently did not allow customers to drink while waiting for friends. They would use a ticketing system to allow customers to buy food and buy alcohol once this was purchased. The recent use of temporary event notices had indicated that they could have up to 20 people waiting.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 107.

The Sub-Committee noted that this application was withdrawn from the agenda as agreement had been reached with all parties.