Departing from a cumulative impact policy

When should a licensing authority depart from its cumulative impact policy and grant a new premises licence? Paddy Whur reports on a recent decision in Cardiff.

I have recently been successful in persuading the Cardiff Licensing Authority to grant a new premises licence for a multi-room, 930-occupancy, new premises in the City Centre Cumulative Impact Policy.

The application was objected to by the Police, the Safety Advisory Group of the Millennium Stadium (as the application was in part of the stadium), the Licensing Authority, a Public Health body, three ward councillors, the Welsh Rugby Union Limited and the Millennium Stadium plc.

Cardiff Council had, as a Licensing Authority, introduced a Cumulative Impact Policy for the St Mary Street area of Cardiff. Under paragraph 13.29 of the Section 182 Guidance document they had to have regard to “the effect of adopting a special policy of this kind is to create a rebuttable presumption that applications for the grant … of premises licences … which are likely to add to the existing cumulative impact will normally be refused or subject to certain limitations, following relevant representations... unless the application can demonstrate in the Operating Schedule that there would be no negative cumulative impact on one or more of the Licensing Objectives. Applicants should give consideration to potential cumulative impact issues when setting out the steps they will take to promote the Licensing Objectives”.

Paragraph 13.35 goes on to say “a special policy should never be absolute … if the Licensing Authority decides that an application should be refused, it will still need to show that the grant of the application would undermine the promotion of one of the Licensing Objectives and that appropriate conditions would be ineffective in preventing the problems involved”.

The applicant in Cardiff, Burningnight, runs a number of Bierkeller Entertainment Complexes, namely in the centre of Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool and was promoting the Licensing Objectives in those areas.We had entered into pre-application meetings with the Responsible Authorities and notwithstanding those pre-application meetings the Responsible Authorities thought that in the circumstances they would have to object outright to the grant of the licence, as they could not see how the premises could promote the Licensing Objectives and not add to the problems in the area of the central Cumulative Impact Policy for Cardiff.

Notwithstanding that I was able to persuade the Licensing Authority to grant the licence as they found that it was a “truly exceptional application”.

The compelling features which allowed them to come to this conclusion were as follows:

• The applicant had three similar premises in major city centres where they were already promoting the Licensing Objectives.
• There would be a £1.27m spend on refurbishing the vacant unit at Millennium Stadium Plaza. The premises had been vacant for a significant period.
• A job creation in the sum of 150 new jobs (full and part time).
• The premises would be an entertainment complex where each room would have its own themed entertainment and it was not accurate to describe them as high volume vertical drinking establishments. A condition was offered giving a 70% of occupancy in seating and was significantly below the figure which could be permitted under fire regs (1400).
• The premises would have a significant food-led operation during the daytime and there were food serveries in each of the three themed areas. Food would be served until the premises were closed.
• A departure lounge was to be introduced to the premises. This area would be dedicated for people waiting to leave the premises. It was not part of the licensed area. Free soft drinks would be available in this area and customers could buy food for the end of the evening without having to go back into St Mary Street to visit the takeaways. In addition this area would be serviced by a dedicated taxi provision and council trained taxi marshals would be employed to make sure that people effected an orderly dispersal from the premises.
• Each of the rooms would have a significant entertainment package, making sure that there was food and entertainment at the heart of the offer and not just the sale of alcohol.
• The other operations in Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool permit packages (“packages”) of alcohol to be sold and also there is the facility for free flow sale of alcohol from table top pumps with a credit card. These were removed from the Cardiff offer due to concerns raised by Public Health.
• A sum of 50 conditions, highly tuned to the operation of the premises was offered. This included the supervision of customers in the premises, the movement of security staff to become “taxi marshals” with a robust dispersal policy.
• A minimum number of staff at the ratio of 1:30 customers available to act as taxi marshals to assist customers to their taxis and disperse from the venue.
• A minimum price for sale of alcohol was introduced by way of a formula on the sale of different types of alcohol.
• Staff were specifically employed in each room to ensure that customers seated away from the supervision at the bar were monitored for alcohol consumption. It was accepted by the Licensing Committee that there were no premises in the centre of Cardiff offering such comprehensive measures to promote the Licensing Objectives. The Authority in granting the licence came to the conclusion that they should not be precluded from being granted a licence with such thoughtful and robust conditions/operating styles. There was a hope that others would heed the level of the introduction of this Premises Licence/operation and seek to improve their offer.
• In coming to this conclusion the Authority looked at their own licensing policy and in particular the following sections: “in determining a licence application the overriding principal adopted by the council would be that each application would be determined on its merits”.
• “The decisions taken by the Authority would be focussed on matters within the control of the individual licensees and others granted relevant permissions. Accordingly these matters will centre on the premises and places being used for licensable activities and the vicinity of these premises and places”.

We were successful in persuading the authority to grant the licence and in so doing highlighted that the premises were not actually in the hotspot area of St Mary’s Street, but were 500 yards away from this street. However, the premises was still caught by the Cumulative Impact Policy.

The premise licence holder was found to have worked hard to ameliorate any issues against the Licensing Authorities due to their introduction. The Licensing Authority accepted the argument that the premises could actually aid dispersal rather than adding to end of the night problems. The fact that the premises were situated somewhat away from the takeaways and current taxi provision; coupled with the introduction of the departure lounge and the service of food until the premises were closed, meant that there was a significant opportunity to actually remove some of the problems of dispersal in the area.

This is a superb example of how cumulative impact policies should never be absolute.I have always been concerned that cumulative impact policies should be fit for purpose. There is a potential with cumulative impact policies that if they are used to absolutely refuse every new application, that this will stifle development and introduction of new and potentially better operators into areas where is stress on the Licensing Objectives. This can have the inadvertent negative effect of making the existing operators rest on their laurels and not improve their standards.

Paddy Whur is a partner at Woods Whur. He can be contacted on 0113 234 3055 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..