Licensing Committee - Monday 16 February 2026, 6:30pm - Wandsworth Council Webcasting

Licensing Committee
Monday, 16th February 2026 at 6:30pm 

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Good evening and welcome to this meeting of Licencing Committee.
My name is Councillor French and I'm Chair of the Licencing Committee.
Members of the committee, I will now call your names in alphabetical order.
Please switch on your microphone to confirm your attendance.
Before we start, we've had a note.
Please note, no apologies for lateness from Councillor McLeod.
So Councillor Burchill, Councillor Brooks, Councillor Humphreys.
Good evening, Chair. Present.
Councillor Jaffray. Good evening, all.
Councillor Justin. Councillor McLeod has given apologies for
lateness. Councillor Pridham.
Good evening. Councillor Sweet.
Good evening. Councillor Boswell.
Good evening. Councillor Boswell, Tooting Back Ward.
and Councillor Van der Vraaj. Apologies for absence of being received from
Councillor Davies, Lee and Morokus. Members are reminded to ensure that your
microphone is turned off unless you are speaking. When you are called to speak
and every time you do speak, please state your name. Please bear in mind
that the committee must remain quorum at all times and that you should remain
present throughout the item under discussion in order to legitimately vote
on that item unless you have a conflict of interest with the item.
We have a number of officers present who will introduce themselves when they address the committee.
On to the business of the evening.
Agenda item one, minutes.
Minutes of the last meeting of the licencing committee held on the 8th of July, 2025.
Everyone had an opportunity to look at those minutes?
Are the minutes of the licencing committee held on the 8th of July 2025 agreed?
Please note that members need not have been present at the meeting in order to agree them.
Agreed.
Okay.
That was a very resounding agreed.
Thank you.
Okay.
I'll sign and date this.
What's the date today?
The 16th.
Thank you.

2 Declarations of Interests

On to Agenda Item 2, declarations of interest.
Are there any declarations of either pecuniary, other registrable or non -registrable interests?
Please declare any interest quoting the item and paper number in which you have interest in describing the nature of your interest,
including whether or not you will be taking part in the item.
Any member declaring a pecuniary interest must leave the meeting room without speaking on the item first,
until you are advised by Democratic Services that you may re -enter the meeting room.
Any member declaring an other registrable interest or non -registrable interest in an agenda item which directly relates to the financial interest or wellbeing of your interest,
or of a close relative or close associate for non -registrable interest may address the meeting if you wish.
But you must not participate in the discussion or vote and must then leave the meeting room until you are advised by democratic services that you may re -enter the room.
Any declarations of interest?
Agenda item three.

3 Gambling Fees and Charges 2026/27 (Paper No. 26-55)

Presenting, this is not the presenting officer though, sorry.
Sunit, sorry, I was like.
Actually, Ms. Sharkey's moved on.
Ms. Sharkey has moved on.
Thank you very much.
Over to you, officer.
Thank you.
Thank you.
So we're here this evening, not this morning, to consider the gambling fees.
I just want to ask that if everyone's read the papers and if it's okay just to go straight forward.
Brilliant, thank you.
So we are required to set the fees every year and as you will see that these fees have stayed the same
and they are set to what we can as the maximum that we can charge under the gambling act.
If you would like numbers of gambling venues within the borough, I'm happy to provide that.
So we have in adult gaming's we have 11, it's fallen from 11 to 3,
which is actually the same as last year, so exactly the same number they haven't gone up.
The number of licenced bingos increased from 2019 from one to five, which is present.
And again, that's the same as last year, so there's been no increase over the last 12 months.
And for the betting premises, there has been a drop.
We were at 27 last year, we're now down to 26.
And we are expecting this to anecdotally reduce as people shift towards online betting rather than in -person betting.
So we're asking the committee to approve the licences and fees as set out in Appendix 1 of the agenda.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Are we agreed?
Yeah, agreed.
Thank you.
Before concluding the business of this part of the meeting, I just wanted to say I had sat recently just looking at gambling harms
and really I'm happy that the council are keeping in line with some of the policies around local government
but want to raise it for both sides as something that we should be really cautious of looking at
in whatever future administration will be operating the council going forward
because it is one of those hidden social harms around gambling.
So I just wanted to flag it flag it here because this will be my last licencing committee chairing ship
I won't be standing in the next election, but as a resident of the borough is something that's very dear to my heart
So and for officers to be aware of that but also for elected members to really keep their eyes on
What gambling looks like in in the borough so more of them hopefully not political statement
But one just from the heart for us to take this really seriously and look at it going forward
That concludes the business of the committee.
Oh, sorry.
Oh, I didn't see you there.
Councillor Humphreys.
Thank you, Chair.
Just briefly, I wanted to say thank you to you, because it is your last one, and all
the ones I've participated in where you've been in the chair.
You've done an exemplary job of being fair and under difficult circumstances sometimes.
So, I just wanted to say we'll miss you for that side of the staff, and thank you for
your good service to the borough, because you've helped a lot, and try to do it as scrupulously
as you can, so well done. Thank you.
Thank you, Councillor Humphries. That really means a lot to me. I really appreciate that. Thank you.
That concludes the business of the committee. Thank you for your attendance.
We shall now have a short pause before we start the meeting of the Regulatory Licencing Committee.
Thank you, Councillor.
Have a lovely evening.
Thank you, Councillor Jaffray.
See you soon.
Okay, Councillor.
So the people that will be staying for hold on one minute.
We just need to just do a democratic services cheque.
One second.
because it seems quite unusual usually I believe we've had full committee for
both licencing and regulatory so officers are just cheque in before you
leave councillor Priton he can go you can go you've been dismissed sir okay we
will have a short pause because we need Councillor Marshall and Councillor
So, Councillor Van Froge and Councillor Jeffrey, have a lovely evening.
Thank you, thank you for being present.
See you guys soon.
All right.
Good evening and welcome to this meeting of the Regulatory Licencing Committee.
My name is Councillor French, Chair of the Regulatory Licencing Committee.
Members of the Committee, I will now call your names in alphabetical order.
Please switch on your microphone to confirm your attendance.
Councillor Boswell.
Councillor Sheila Boswell, Tootingbeck Ward.
Councillor Humphreys.
Councillor Humphries, evening again, Chair.
Councillor Sweet.
Good evening.
We've had apologies for lateness from Councillor McLeod and Councillor Marshall.
Because the meeting is quorum, we can continue.
Members and Councillor Brooks is not present today.
Members are reminded to ensure that your microphone is turned off unless you are speaking.
When you are called to speak and every time you do speak, please state your name.
Please bear in mind that the committee must remain quorum at all times and that you should
remain present throughout the item under discussion in order to legitimately vote on that item
unless you have a conflict of interest with the item.
We have a number of offices present who will introduce themselves when they address the
committee.
Thank you.
That's okay.
We've just started the regulatory part.
Licencing has been concluded.
Agenda item one.
Just allow Councillor McLeod to take a seat.
Minutes of the last meeting of the regulatory licencing committee held on the 29th of January,
Are the minutes of the licencing committee held on the 29th of January, 2025, agreed?
Do I have something to sign?
Thank you.
Thank you. Are there any declarations of either agenda item two, declarations of interest?
Are there any declarations of either pecuniary, other registable or non -registable interest? Please
declare any interest quote in the item and paper number in which you have interest in describing
the nature of your interest including whether or not you'll be partaking in the item. Hey, thank you
Councillor Marshall.
Any declarations of interest, conflicts of interest?
No?
Okay, let's go on to agenda item three.
Thank you, officer.
Thank you very much, Chair.
Once again, I would just like to cheque that everyone has had an opportunity to read the
papers, and if so, I will just go into a brief intro, if that's okay.
Thank you, councillors.
So the second paper is for discretionary fees and
charges for public control licences other than those relating to street trading, which are set by this committee.
The current and proposed fees are set out in appendix one of the agenda.
And the proposed fees set that the aim is to recover the full cost identified in providing the service.
So, we are here today to ask the regulatory licencing committee to approve the revised
level of licencing fees as detailed in that appendix, which will come into effect as of
the 1st of April, 2026.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Does any of the committee have any questions?
Councillor Humphries?
Thank you, Chair.
Just a quick one.
And apologies in advance for, I always ask a dodo question.
So I understand you recalculate the fees based on the recovery costs and all the rest of
it sort of things.
I was trying to do my elementary maths and work out if it was like a sort of across the
fees 10 % or everyone seems slightly different.
So it is obviously sort of calculated individually.
So well done on a lot of work to do all those calculations and stuff and things like that.
But can you give me a sort of a sense of where those increases have come from?
Is it on like staffing costs, resource time?
Is there one particular aspect that's driven those increases?
You put your mic down, I thought you were going to answer.
It is exactly that, Councillor.
It's reflective of staff costs going up, inflation, enforcement costs, and in particular, in terms
of all the fees in front of you, the animal licencing fees, which seem to, I can appreciate,
be a larger amount.
And that is because we are charged by the City of London for our veterinary services,
And their costs have gone up substantially, which then means we have to pass that on to be able to recover costs.
We don't make a profit from these, unfortunately, well, fortunately, unfortunately, I suppose.
So, yeah, it is just a cost recovery.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Any further questions?
Okay, are we in agreement and accepting the paper from the officer?
Agreed?
Thank you.
Okay, that concludes the business of the committee.
Thank you for attendance.
We will now have a short pause before we go on to this evening's licence and subcommittee application.
Thank you everyone for attending.
Thank you very much.
.
Thank you.
Hi, both.
If you could mute yourselves until we're ready for you to speak.
Thank you.
Thank you.
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