Licensing Committee - Wednesday 23 October 2024, 6:30pm

Licensing Committee
Wednesday, 23rd October 2024 at 6:30pm

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Thank you.

Hello and good evening and welcome to this meeting of the

licensing committee. This meeting is being webcast and

some officers may be accessing virtually. Please bear with us

in case we experience any technical difficulties. My name

is Councillor Morris McLeod. I'm chair of the licensing

committee. Members of the committee, I will now call your names in alphabetical order.

Please switch on your microphones and confirm your attendance. Starting with Councillor Burchill.

Good evening.

Councillor Brooks.

Good evening.

I have apologies, but okay, so moving to Councillor Humphreys.

Present.

Councilor Lawless.

Present.

Councilor Marshall.

Present.

Councilor Mayorkas.

Here.

Councilor Pridhan.

Present.

Councilor Tiller.

Present.

And Councilor Vratharaj.

Good evening, everyone.

Good evening to you all.

I have apologies from Councillors Paul

Justin French and Davis, I think that's everybody. Yeah

Okay, members are reminded to ensure microphones are turned off and as you're speaking and when called to speak every time you do

So please state your name for people watching at home

Please but please bear in mind the committee remains the muscle remain core at all times

I think we're actually looking pretty solid on that.

Thank you everybody for making the time.

So I won't go into that.

We have a number of officers present

who will introduce themselves

when they address the committee.

So moving on, agenda item one, the minutes.

So the minutes of the last committee meeting

held on the 16th of July are in your packs.

Has anybody got any issues on the updates,

any questions about those minutes?

take them all together if there are any.

Wonderful.

In that case then, can I sign them as a correct record of the minutes?

Thank you, everybody.

Okay, so declarations of interest.

Are there any declarations of either pecuniary or other registrable or non -registrable interests?

Thank you everybody.

Okay, so now we move on to the statement of our licensing policy and principles on the gambling act.

Caroline, our office, Caroline Sharkey, our licensing manager, Caroline Sharkey will have a short intro on this.

Thank you, Chair, and good evening, members.

I'm just going to give you a summary of the report because I'm conscious you've read it through.

So I'll just give you a summary of what we're considering tonight.

Under section 349 of the Gambling Act, the Council is required every successful period,

every three years, to prepare a statement of principles that they propose in applying

and exercising their functions under the Gambling Act.

and we are required to publish it.

So the next successful period, chairs,

that's on the 31st of January.

However, the statement has to be adopted

by 31st of December, and it must be published

at least four weeks before the date

on which it comes into effect.

The committee tonight has to consider

the proposed statement of principles,

and members may recall that on the 16th of January,

July, the committee approved the draft statement of principle for public consultation, and

the consultation chair took place between 23 July and 7 October.

We received four responses to the consultation, and these were through the online survey.

And I might say at this stage, Chair, from experience, we don't really get a lot of responses

to the gambling policy, so far is quite a good number. The responses that were received,

Chair, are produced on pages 59 to 65 of the agenda. Of those who responded, Chair indicated

the general opposition to gambling premises in Wandsworth Borough and concerns were raised

about the impact of gambling on individuals, young people, the local community, particularly

those who can at least afford it.

However, Chair, as I have laid out in the committee report, apart from casinos, the

local authority is required under Section 153 of the Gambling Act to grant an application

unless there is a compelling reason not to do so and if there is evidence that an application

would undermine the licensing objectives.

And also, under the Gambling Act, Chair, we cannot just reduce the numbers of existing

licence premises.

We can only do so if a review application was received and that matter was referred

to the licensing subcommittee to consider, and then whilst the subcommittee considers

all the evidence, then they may choose that the last option would be to revoke the licence.

So those are the only options available to the Council.

Some respondents, Chair, raised concerns about the location of the gambling license premises

not to be in vulnerable locations where young people congregate.

This information, Chair, is included in the policy and is detailed under paragraph 15 .21

and is also detailed under Appendix C of the policy as a local area risk assessment that

applicants and operators have to have regard to before they submit any applications.

Some respondents raised concerns that they've encountered individuals frequenting betting

shops in the borough who are vulnerable and can't afford to lose their money in this way.

We have encouraged residents to ensure that the report matters to us.

I can confirm she has not received any reports, but what I can assure members is when we receive reports, we do visit.

And we do visit with our colleagues from the Gambling Commission, as well as we do carry out proactive visits to licensed premises in the Barra.

So we have emphasized the need for the residents or if ward members have got local residents

reporting to report such matters to the licensing team and the contact details and everything

Chair is produced under paragraph 24 and page 29 of the Statement of Licensing Policy.

At this stage, Chair, we are not proposing to make any further changes to the policy

that's already been consulted on as it's worked really well.

And tonight we are asking the committee to approve the Statement of Principles under

the Gambling Act as set out in Appendix A and also to prove the proposal to reinstate

a no casino resolution as required under Section 166 of the Gambling Act.

That's the summary of the report you have before you, Chair, and I'm happy to answer

any questions at this stage or any points of clarification.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Ms Sharkey.

Does the Committee have any questions on this?

Councillor Humphreys.

Thank you, Chair.

Just a quick one, Ms Sharkey.

Thank you.

It was a really good report.

I thought it was very thorough and all the rest of it.

And as you just said in your summary now, although we didn't get a massive amount of

response to consultations, you said that's actually not bad for us.

But just on that, you do say it very clearly, as I said in the report about why we can't

object to things and why we can and all the rest of it.

But it does say in section 18 on the bottom of page 6, I just wanted to highlight that

for clarity for anybody who might be interested, that you do say there very well that you welcome

anybody with any concerns to get in such as you just said in your report.

I just want to say obviously we don't encourage frivolous or whatever inquiries, but I think

if somebody has got genuine concerns we'd never say to people please don't flag it up,

do flag it up, and then you as officers can make a professional judgment as to whether

that's valid or not.

So just to highlight that, which is stated in the report, just to make sure people understand

that they have got the option they really want to.

I think that was very well said, Councillor.

Thank you.

Let's see, Councillor Brooks.

Thank you, Chair.

Just a quick question about what makes a casino a casino.

The definition in the paper is around the provision of casino games.

Would a betting terminal sort of arcade style game ever become a casino game under the definitions

we have? Good question, Councillor. I would say, with the help of my legal advisor here,

I'm putting on the spot, but really the ones in the betting shops, they have got casino

machines. So, yeah, they are part of, we have like adult gaming centres, they do have casino

machines and we have betting shops and do have machines. But a casino is just a proper

pure casino and from the best of my knowledge, I have to come back to you, the government

has prescribed which authorities can actually have those casinos and to the best of my knowledge

again they have prescribed it and I don't think we could actually consider that because

the super casinos are being prescribed in the legislation.

So I hope I've answered your question.

You may be the ones that on the betting,

when you go into a betting premises or adult game,

they do have casinos, but they're not.

The casinos are pure betting and what a casino is basically.

Does that answer your question?

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Can I, I think that's a brilliant question.

I've got, I'm a bit unsure.

So things like Aladdin's Palace, I don't know if it exists anymore, but down in Clapham

Junction, that's what it was when I was a kid, was just the rows and rows of those machines.

That's not a casino.

Is that right?

A casino is where, cards or?

I am not sure what it is.

So actual cards need to be involved.

Okay, interesting.

Thank you.

Councillor Sweet.

Thank you and apologies for lateness for the meeting.

I'm sorry I missed most of your presentation.

You may have covered this question.

My question was about the consultation response.

Obviously, only four responses is a bit disappointing, but also makes me a bit concerned that we

might not have fully captured public views about a really important policy area for Wandsworth.

Can you give any more clarity on why response levels were so low and whether you're satisfied

that we have captured any public concern about gambling premises?

Thank you, Councillor. Yeah, I did actually flag it up earlier when I was doing my presentation.

I did say from experience the numbers we've got are quite, that is what you get on the

gambling premises. And usually, the only other thing I needed to add was gambling premises

are very proactive in compliance because they are tiered in terms of regulations.

The operators usually get operating licenses from the Gambling Commission, so they've got

that regulatory framework to comply with, and then they get licenses from us.

So they are kind of double enforcement, and we have to – so they have compliance with

the Gambling Commission, and we provide that regulatory enforcement compliance, so they've

two tiered authorities to comply with.

And in addition to that, I just wanted to let members know that we have, we do carry

out proactive visits and we did the visits again so that I was confident in reporting

to the members what the findings were.

And I'm happy to report that they are, in terms of policies, local risk assessment,

they're very compliant in terms of those test purchases.

is that they are very compliant in comparison to the other licenses that we issue.

In terms of the consultation process, it was wider.

We sent it to all the responsible authorities, interest groups, as I've laid out in the consultation

section of the report, and we advertise it on the website as well and sent it out to

all the operators and all interest groups in the community.

But from experience, the numbers usually do tend to be low with gambling policies in comparison

to the licensing act like public pubs and restaurants, such like.

Does that help?

Councillor?

Yeah, that's very helpful and thanks for giving that reassurance around the level of, I suppose,

monitoring that premises have in the borough. I guess I still think four

responses is on the low side for a borough of three hundred and twenty

thousand people and I just wondered whether we can do anything next time

round I guess it's a few years away now to try to canvas more views from members

of the public. I have to say in my experience people do feel quite strongly

about about these these types of activities in their areas so I was a bit

I'm surprised that the numbers were so low,

even though you've given some reassurance.

Absolutely, Councillor, yeah, I agree.

I mean, next time the consultation, if approved,

it will be another three years,

and we'll take that on board, definitely.

And perhaps we can have conversations

with the board councillors as well

to ensure that their residents are more proactive

in feeding back, but we'll definitely do that.

Thank you.

And again, obviously we want as much engagement as possible.

We want our policies to be as robust as possible, so anything we can do to get more engagement

is useful.

And can I ask, what sort of response do we normally get?

Is that – because four does sound very small for 300 ,000 people, but maybe it's because

the service is really good.

What sort of level of response do we normally get when we put these consultations out?

Do you know?

Yeah, thank you, Chair.

Because we do cover, I've presented to other authorities, Richmond and Merton, as you know,

with the regulatory services.

And the majority of responses, and from experience, people just don't want gambling premises.

Those are the majority ones that we seem to get in terms of, you know, the gambling harm.

And we do get responses on, like I did a recent presentation with Richmond, where people just

complained about online gambling. Online gambling is not regulated by the licensing authority.

It is a gambling commission function. So we can't do anything and people do complain about

lotteries, ticket scratch cards, we can't regulate that those they are regulated by

the government. So those are the kind of responses generally that you will tend to get if you're

going out for public consultation.

question. Yes, but I thank you. I suppose I meant when we've gone out to consultation

on this before, what sort of response do we normally get? I mean, you might not know to

be honest, but is it is this like, oh, gosh, it's fallen off low or is it normally at this

sort of level? You know, just so we can get an idea. Yeah. Sorry, just just to clarify,

we would get like, you know, we would get likes, for example, more, but they would all

be themed along those subject areas. So you'd get like 10 for example but they would all,

most of them would be generally opposing to the license premises. So the subject areas

are kind of similar but the numbers can be high but the subject areas would be the same.

Does that help? That does, thank you. Any more questions?

Councilor.

I just wanted to thank Ms. Sharkey for a good presentation.

And it's really encouraging to hear that you say that most of the premises are pretty compliant.

And also I wanted to ask, do you visit these premises when you've had a complaint?

or do you go and visit these premises just sort of on the spur of the moment just to see if they are compliant?

All right, yeah, thank you, Chair.

So we have two types of visits that we do.

When we get a complaint, we definitely visit.

That's a reactive.

But in addition to that, we do proactive visits.

So, for example, we did proactive visits in July.

I personally went out with the officers in Wandsworth and visited loads of licensed premises.

We targeted the premises that, for example, adult gaming centers, we went out and visited

them just as a proactive visit to ensure that, you know, to ensure compliance and making

ensure that the records were correct in terms of refusals, challenging people that are aggressively

betting on machines and what those logs look like, and self -exclusion orders, those kind

of things.

So we were checking that they were in place, and that's why I can report that the procedures

and policies we found when we visited these places in Wandsworth were really good.

I don't know if that helps.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Any more questions?

Okay, and I just want to add as well, and I think that the way that our licensing team handles these gamblers establishments is really good,

and has been really good. That's not a party political point, that's been good for a long time.

We've got well -regulated, you know, establishments that, you know, I don't get many complaints about them,

which is, you know, I know over parts of the country

where that's not the case,

so I think that's well done to your team, thank you.

If there are no more questions then,

can we approve this statement on gambling policy?

Thank you.

Thank you, members.

Okay, so now we're onto agenda item four,

which is a cumulative impact assessment.

We've got a verbal update.

Ms. Sharkey?

Thank you, Chair.

The cumulative impact policy, as members may recall,

we reported that we were going to gather the information

for members to consider,

but we didn't complete all the granular data

that we needed to provide to analyze the data in further detail in time for this committee.

So what we've proposed to do, Chair, is to give the committee a snapshot of what we found

and where we're going, and we're happy to take any comments from this committee so that

when we meet again at the next meeting, you will get a full report outlining the proposed

areas that we consider to have a cumulative impact in the borough.

I have worked, Chair, with a consultant, so I've got my – one of the consultants, Sylvia,

she introduced herself, and we've got Alistair online.

They've really helped to get all the information that we did and the data analysis.

They've done a lot of field research, which you will see in the report.

So, at this stage, Chair, I will perhaps hand over to Sylvia, who is going to take you through

their presentation.

Thank you.

Thank you, Caroline.

I have the presentation up on screen, and it shows you the contents we're going to run

through, so the context of cumulative impact assessment, the methodology that we followed,

some of our findings to date, summaries of the insights from all the areas that we've

researched, and then some conclusions and questions.

And I'd just like to thank you very much for having us along today, and also thank you

to all the members and officers that have supported the process so far.

It's been very, very helpful and useful for the project.

Next slide, please.

Just a reminder on – I don't think it's come up onto the screen, Caroline, sorry.

Just for the members.

I will read it anyway because that is okay.

Is it connecting?

I will just read out what is a cumulative impact assessment.

The legislation states that a licensing authority may publish a document which is a cumulative

impact assessment, stating that the licensing authority considers that the number of licensed

premises in one or more parts of the borough is such that it is likely that it would be

inconsistent with the authority's duty to uphold the licensing objectives to grant any

further authorizations in respect of premises in that part or those parts.

And as the committee, I'm sure, are fully aware, there are nuances that can be applied

to cumulative impact assessments in relation to the types of premises, et cetera, and the

geographies that they apply to.

We were asked by London borough of Wandsworth to collate, analyze and provide relevant data

and evidence for inclusion in a report to enable the licensing committee to determine

if there is sufficient evidence to consult on introducing one or more cumulative impact

assessments for the London borough of Wandsworth.

The technology, I don't think the technology is quite working.

Does everybody have a copy of the report in front of them visible just because I'm concerned

When I go to the numbers, it will be confusing if not.

No, that's okay.

It's working now, Caroline, I think.

Great.

So next slide, next slide, next slide, I think.

On to the methodology slide, please.

Next one.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

So just to give you an overview of the breadth of data

and information we were provided to work with,

we looked through obviously your statement

of licensing policy and other relevant documents

such as your fantastic nighttime strategy

that's recently been rolled out.

We also had engagement and interviews

with the police, community safety,

rough sleeping colleagues, and public health,

and thank you again for their time

and input from your relevant officers.

Crime and ASB data, and you'll see the time frame

for the crime and ASB data is the most up to date

that we could access, and it was a 12 month period.

And then the other ones are within the last financial year,

So April 2023 to March 2024, we looked at CCTV incidents, noise data, street drinking

data, London Ambulance Service, and then we also, they were provided by the relevant service.

So for example, London Ambulance Service obviously provided their data.

We also looked at the licensing database that's held by London Boroughs, ones with by Ms.

and then we conducted some fieldwork overnight audits

in all the different areas of interest,

which I'll come on to shortly.

So in terms of initial findings,

we've put up some heat maps here,

which show all the different incident types

that we've looked at grouped together.

So the first one is antisocial behavior and public order.

And it shows you areas of concentration of these incidents.

At the moment, it doesn't show you numbers, but we'll come onto those a bit later.

But it just shows you where typically those incidents are concentrated within the borough.

I must say this is 24 hours.

So you know, some incidents are probably slightly more relevant in terms of this policy towards

the obviously the nighttime economy side of things.

But again, once we get the more granular data, we can start extracting a few more insights.

but it gives you a very good overview of where some of these incidents occur.

So you'll see the for the oh yes,

so we've gone into drugs, possessions and weapons.

You'll see there's tends to be kind of hotspot areas, if you like,

around places like Tooting Broadway,

around Clapham Junction, and in some cases around Putney,

Wandsworth Town and Ballam as well.

So those are the areas that we've really looked at in terms of the areas of interest.

I think you can go on to the theft and robbery, which tends to be the highest volume crime,

and then violence and sexual offenses.

The next slide gives you a bit more of a granular insight into what those incidents comprise.

And as mentioned, they are 24 hours, so it won't always be relevant to cumulative impact.

We are always asked the question of well, have you looked at specifically alcohol related ASB in crime?

but we find that to be quite unreliable because the way that that's reported it relies on somebody to

Physically tag something as alcohol related and that's not always very reliable

So we do look at other factors that so if it's you know, ASB that happens after six o 'clock at night

And it's around a license premises then

Or in a town center. We tend to sort of flag that as probably alcohol related

So there was a few proxies applied to the data,

but we used that because otherwise you'll see

there was only 38 incidents across the whole borough

flagged as alcohol related ASB.

Well, I think I imagine that you can see

that that's probably not accurate either.

So the figures lay somewhere in between the two.

And in the table, you'll see that obviously we,

as mentioned in some of the notes at the bottom,

that it's 24 hours, covers all the categories,

and with the granular data,

we'll be able to pull some extra insights out.

But I think the far right column is a really good sort of temperature gauge and a very

good sort of shorthand to explain where the majority of the incidents are happening, are

correlated.

And so you'll see that the highest sort of percentage of crime out of, you know, percentage

of the borough is Tooting Broadway at 10 .5 % of all borough crime, followed by ones with

High Street 8 .1%, Putney at 7 .9%,

Clapham Junction 6 .1%, and Ballam at 5 .9%.

Next slide please, Caroline.

Oh, I should mention, if anybody's got any questions

along the way, please do ask me.

Councilor Sweet.

Just so I'm really clear as you go through this,

the, what you're showing us is all crime.

Yes, sorry, the crime in ASB, it's not,

It's the percentage of those categories in those categories.

Yes, that's correct.

And to you, can you tell us what the kind of radius is

for each of these locations that you've included?

I think it can be come on to that later

because we have drawn some boundaries around each area.

So when we come to license premises by area of interest

towards the end, there's a sort of triangulation lines

around the area.

So thank you.

So coming on to the next slide,

We have included CCTV incidents, but a caveat there is clearly if there are more cameras in an area, they're going to capture more incidents

So that's quite subjective, but it gives it adds to the the picture the overall picture

Obviously a number of incidents per year that have been recorded by the CCTV team as alcohol related clearly alcohol related

Are quite low which we would expect but again, it's for context rather than for making a policy based decision

Noise -wise, we always, every borough that we've ever worked with and every place across

the country we've ever worked with, it's very challenging to record noise, particularly

noise that you could attribute to cumulative impact, because that tends to be in a town

center area rather than, you know, the noise is coming from the dark and dog.

So it's very hard to accurately give a picture of noise, but your noise recording data is

better than some that we work with,

and we could pull out some insights there

around sort of percentage of noise -related complaints

in the evening and nighttime,

and which areas that they related to.

So you'll see that Ballum has the highest number

of noise reports, with a quarter of the total

that were reported, partly at 14%,

Tooting nearly 11%, that's Tooting,

Beck and Tooting, common, combined.

Clapham Junction, 10%, and ones with Townes, 7 .7.

Street drinking, the numbers are too low to really isolate anything of particular note,

but we do like to look at that because obviously street drinking gives you a bit more of a

flavor around off -license issues.

However, it's not the only measure, and you'll see that a bit later as the police have given

some useful insights into some of the thoughts they have around off -licenses.

Alcohol -related call -outs, we have Putney at the highest number there of 16 .2 % of the

total in the year, Ballym at 12 .2,

Tooting Broadway nearly 10%,

Wantsworth Town 7 .5, and Clapham Junction 6 .7.

I think what's very interesting to me

is that there's some areas that have shown

high levels of crime may not have high levels

of ambulance call -outs, and it's a very mixed picture

in terms of there's not one clear area of the borough

that has all of the incidents as they're kind of

being the kind of highest presenting area,

So that's quite interesting in and of itself.

Any other questions at this moment?

It could well be.

Yeah, I was going to, not a question really, just helping me to think about these stats.

All these areas are so different.

So I'm thinking, you know, people going through Clapham Junction, Clapham Junction gets blamed

for stuff that might be nothing to do with any of our licensed premises, it's just a hub.

How on earth do you sort of unpick that kind of intricacy?

That is challenging, I suppose. In the report, we've highlighted some of the

reasons why some of the figures may be higher for places like Clapham Junction.

So you are right. And also, for example, theft in Clapham Junction, as you expect, is huge.

But that's because it's a huge station, isn't it? And that's where theft happens a lot.

And that's one of them, you know, I don't you tend to use theft as a measure for cumulative impact because I feel that

You know, is that something that licensed premises and alcohol? Yes, there is a factor there, but it's it's it's a phenomena that

We're seeing everywhere for many reasons

Yes, we put some caveats in the report

We may be able to get some sorry about that. We may be able to get some more insights. Sorry counselor. No, thank you

Sorry, I thought you're finished. I was gonna come

Thank you. Um, similar question about other reasons why things might spike.

Can the data ever capture whether things like a sporting fixture would be causing a spike in police call outs or crime? I'm just thinking about sort of full of home games impacting on Putney or similar things like that or Wimbledon.

Well, it could because we could assign we could look at certain dates and days of the

week and I actually used to live in Putney on Lower Richmond Road, so I know it very

well.

And I know how certain sporting events can affect football and incidents there.

So if that was required, we could take some bigger sporting events and compare against

different weekends if that's important, because I imagine that, you know, it's welcome that

there are those sports events and there was a certain level of increase in

footfall and therefore crime in those on those dates.

Councillor Burchill.

Thank you very much. Could you just explain the CCTV data again for us?

Yes I don't know if my colleague Ali is on the call I don't know if we can if he

turn his microphone on and talk to us about CCTV because it was him that captured and analyzed

that data. Ali, are you there? Hello, I'm here. Can you all hear me, councillors? Yes, we can.

Okay, thank you, chair. Well, just very briefly, the CCTV incidents over the course of the same

12 -month period, which have got a clear alcohol -related issue, that could be someone

leaving a pub and drunkenly staggering around.

It could be street drinkers in certain parts of town centers

who are drinking and perhaps are causing a nuisance,

leaving street drinking to try to sub out,

those sorts of things.

I think the problem with CCTV data is,

it's not a census of all of the problems.

It depends on the number of cameras that you have there,

depends on how much resource you put into monitoring all of the cameras.

But essentially there's quite a low number there. In some other boroughs they have a lot more

cameras and they may pick up a lot more incidents. Somewhere like Westminster, very surprisingly,

you might be surprised to hear, don't have any cameras. They don't have a CCTV system in

Westminster anymore, so they don't have any data around this. But essentially, Councillor, they are

those incidents across that year that had a very clear alcohol flag next to

them but it is a low number. Thank you and Councillor did that do you have a

follow -up? Yes it's just an interesting piece of data that it's

presumably all of those incidents must be caught somewhere else within the data?

Or are they just seen, have they just been seen on the CCTV but the police haven't been involved or the ambulance or the...

So it's...

Are you asking because...

I just don't quite understand why we've got it there,

because I can understand why we have everything else.

No, I think I'm on the same confusion as you,

in that what counts as a CCTV incident,

because these aren't police reports,

these aren't, so is that just someone seeing something

on CCTV and writing it down?

What is an incident?

That's what we're asking, isn't it?

Yes, it's a very good question.

In terms of the crossover, yes, if it's a very serious incident, for example,

then you may find that it's replicated in the police data because the police have been called

out. The same with, for example, highly intoxicated street drinker or someone who's been in a pub

who's a vulnerable person who's been picked up because the ambulance service have been called in.

that might cross over into there as well.

But most of them, in my experience of working

in other locations will be sort of fairly low level stuff

that may not have resulted in a call

to the London Ambulance Service or to the police.

But what I think might be useful in the final report

is to look at the qualitative descriptions,

which are usually alongside them,

and help us understand what's actually going on

with those incidents.

and if I can recommend that we do that,

obviously anonymized for any personal details,

that might help you as councillors understand

what these incidents are, and I'm happy to do that for you.

That's helpful, thank you.

Councillor?

Okay, Councillor Humphries.

Thank you, Chair.

Just a quickie.

I have to say, I don't envy your job on this one.

It's a tough task,

because there's an awful lot of data to capture,

and it's hard to extrapolate that into something meaningful,

but it's all very interesting stuff.

I just wondered on the, going again,

I mean, sorry if you get a cover of this later on,

but going back to the geography kind of thing,

obviously you're focused on, understandably,

on the five town centers,

which are the biggest areas in the borough,

but I was just thinking about some of the secondary

frontages and secondary town centers,

and obviously, pro rata,

those levels of incidences will be lower,

but some, perhaps, some of those might be,

because it's a smaller area.

I'm thinking of somewhere like,

being quite parochial, quite close to me,

like Earlsfield Town Center,

which is a secondary high field,

and so it's a smaller,

people expect a level of activity,

shall we say, somewhere like Clapham Junction,

could you say, it's such a busy area,

but somewhere that's a smaller area,

and perhaps the concentration of places

in the smaller area might be either

flags up more things to people

because they're not so used to it,

or is it sort of how do you adjust that pro rata

to the level of intensity of the issues?

So I'm thinking there's quite a lot of bars

and late night pubs in Earlsfield,

and there was a spike some months ago on issues and things.

It's not constant like that,

I just wonder how you rationalise that against the main town centres as far as which is more

intense perhaps rather than just based on the literal numbers?

It does. Ali, would you like to take that?

Yep, I'm happy to do that. Yeah, I think that's an interesting question,

Councillor, in terms of proportionality and everything is relative, right? So

So what we've looked at is, you know, as Sylvia's set out the actual, you know, the raw numbers of crimes and where they are.

And we'll give you much more granular detail about that when we've unpicked what we've what we've been given.

And then we overlay that with where the license premises are, clusters of those.

OK. And we break that down by the type of license premises.

So for example, it's unlikely that a small neighborhood restaurant is causing,

or is likely to cause problems or their customers are likely to cause the problems

that a nightclub or bar that's open until two or three o 'clock in the morning is.

I'm not saying that that couldn't be the case, but it's unlikely, right?

So part of the mapping that we'll show you and we'll produce in the final report does set out

quite granular detail at street level about what the crime is and what licensed premises

are there. I think the question you ask about the sort of relative impact of problems that

might be associated with the licensed economy and perhaps the impact on local residents who might

accept more of it because they've moved into a town centre that is generally more boisterous

versus somewhere like Earlsfield in your own patch which is more traditionally a bit quieter.

I think it's really hard to capture that.

We can go and have a think about it and come back to you.

But it's the first time it's ever been raised

in that sort of detail.

So it's a new one for me.

I'm happy to give it some thought with Sylvia for you.

That helps.

Thanks very much.

That's great.

I'm glad it's on the agenda.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor.

Councillor.

Thank you very much.

With sort of where we're deciding which areas could be

that we're gonna do a cumulative impact assessment on,

With regards to areas that are on the edge of the borough,

to what extent do we consider activity

that might be generated by licensed premises

that actually sit just over the other side of the line?

So the reason I'm asking this is that

my ward obviously is right up against Lambeth,

and recently, you may have seen it in the news,

there was a knife attack where one person sadly died,

and that's been linked to a licensed premises

that is literally a few meters over the other side

of the borough boundary.

Equally, there are licensed premises

that are just on the Wandsworth side,

and I wondered to what extent you take into account that activity as well.

I'm sure he's responding.

I can perhaps answer, Councillor. In relation to cumulative impact, what we're trying to

look at, and you will see the data as the presentation goes along, the main basis of

cumulative impact is where we've got a saturation of license premises and within that we have

to link it to those themed incidents. And that's what a cumulative impact policy is

about because we are acknowledging that the accumulation of these license premises in

one area is having an adverse reaction to all these incidents. So we cannot, I think

pick one area and one licensed premises, that probably we could be challenged to say, well,

the old basis of a CIA is an accumulation of licensed premises which will be presented

later on. Does that help?

Sort of. But I guess if there are, if for instance, there's a few licensed premises

as is the case in that area on one side of the borough boundary and another case on the

other and then some on the other, do we take that whole area into account or is it just

the site or is it just the licensed premises that happen to be on the Wandsworth side?

Yeah, I think we would take one area within our borough, but I think what we need to also

remember and I'm quite happy for my legal advisor to chip in on this, there are other

ways in which we can control licensed premises.

SEIA is not the only option.

We can look to review that license, which will come before you members, so there are

other options that we can consider. And also, it's important to emphasise that once you

have a CI cumulative impact zone, it doesn't necessarily mean that people you can't have

licensed premises, the applicants will have to have robust operating schedules. All it

does, it gives you a safeguard to say, we've designed this area as a cumulative impact

zone. Therefore, if you want to trade within that area, you need to provide a really good

operating schedule which will convince us that you're not going to have that cumulative

impact. And also, if we get the applications and we've not received any representations,

we are legally required to grant that application.

Is that an item?

Hi, Guy Bishop, the legal advisor to the committee regularly.

What you're looking at here in terms of

cumulative impact assessments are those saturated areas.

Now, where you've got something that happens

over the border or something like that,

but the premises in your borough that are affected

aren't saturated, then what you'll probably be looking at

in a licensing subcommittee if there's an application for a license, for example, is

whether there's still an issue of cumulative impact outside of whatever saturation you

may have.

And you can do that.

So it's what you're doing here is more looking at the saturation of particular areas from

the data and formulating a plan in terms of how those applications are dealt with, whilst

Just in a licensing subcommittee meeting where an application is made for a particular premises,

you would say, okay, although this area doesn't have a saturation and therefore isn't within

cumulative impact assessment, we have got data that's produced to us by the police or

licensing officers or whoever it may be in a representation that can suggest to us that

there's a particular problem we need to address.

and that in that particular very small locality which means you can then make

the right decision whichever way you want to make it.

Right, so it wouldn't be part of the CIA it would just be part of the information that's provided when a

certain decision is being made.

Exactly, yes.

That makes sense.

Thank you. I think that's a really good question. Although that's not included here we don't want residents to think

I live on a road, there's eight bars over there that happen to be in Lambeth and they're

really noisy and someone wants to open a new bar here and one's going to say, oh, you've

only got one, so you're okay.

We as a committee will then take that sort of thing into account.

But thank you.

I'm just going to add something that might help you there.

What you could do in your cumulative impact assessment is to say certain areas in other

boroughs are an impact, possibly, and just to sort of note it.

And that will then help you if you have a licensing subcommittee that needs to make

the particular decision if there is evidence to support it.

Thank you.

I can't remember if we interrupted or if you got to the end of.

I've got a few more slides, if that's okay with everybody.

So we also conducted some more qualitative interviews.

We received some information from members

and thank you very much for taking the time

to speak to your communities and to give us your views

and experiences of things that you often have conversation

with constituents about.

We also spoke to local policing teams,

your community safety team for the local authority,

rough sleeping colleagues and public health.

So nine of 58 ward councilors provided some information

and anecdotal evidence from constituent feedback.

So we've sort of brought that together

into some takeaways by location.

So I shouldn't use the word takeaways,

that's relevant in this committee, isn't it?

So the primary concern for the police,

well, number of off licenses in general across the borough

was mentioned as problematic by a number of your colleagues

and members present, I believe.

The primary concern of area for police is tooting Broadway

and they say that's their main sort of draw on resource

on Fridays and Saturdays.

Concerns included alcohol related violence, sexual offenses

and theft from vulnerable people

between 10 p .m. and 2 a .m. in particular.

Lots of issues around late night food premises

post 11 o 'clock, Fridays and Saturdays being the peak night.

Also, aggressive begging was flagged as a concern by the police.

The secondary concern by the police was Clapham Junction.

Obviously, that's expanding in terms of its nighttime economy, a large transient population,

alcohol -related violence against the person which happens day and night.

And again, we'll look at that through the granular research.

And we also have, you know, we are taking on board the fact it is a junction, it is

through way and looking at how we can represent that

in the report in a fair way.

A sort of tertiary level of concern for the police

all in one part if you like were Ballam, Tootingbeck,

Putney High Street, Northcutt Road and Wandsworth town.

So they all said that those kind of in their own ways

had their own issues that presented for police resourcing.

If we can go to the next slide please.

In terms of primary concern for members

from the Putney areas from Putney wards include Putney High Street so concerns

about assault, noise, intoxication and vandalism, particularly after venues

close, concerns around overcrowding and unpredictable behavior, noise, litter and

road safety with groups sort of spilling out into the road is you know clearly

under the influence of alcohol. The number of late night food venues was a

particular concern and was also noted by us through our overnight audits in those

areas you know they're just it does seem to be a particular saturation of those

in partnering off license and rough sleeping is an issue and also begging

which was also seen on observations finally the police mentioned the

management of dispersed in particular on North cote Road is at the weekend is a

challenge any comments or thoughts around those

Councillor Lawless. I have a question about Tooting Broadway but it probably goes

wider across the borough. I went on a walkabout with one of our licensing

officers to some of the off licenses there and some of the shops you can tell

take it very seriously and the person who is behind the counter or is in the

shop is like the manager and understand exactly what's on the license. Other

sale of high -strength beer in one of our licenses we visited was allowed up until

11 o 'clock but that premises open from 11 p .m. till 2 as well in the morning

and I imagine the people working there have no way of checking actually it's

gone past 11 can I serve this can I sell this 9 % can of alcohol so what can we do

about those because it seems like those licenses are quite outdated I think

And then what are we doing or what can we do in this to make sure that they're meeting the minimum pricing of those?

Because I think it's meant to be £1 .55 a can or something.

And there are some shops in Tootenay Broadway that do like two for £2 .50.

So yeah, anything around that would be really good. Cheers.

Thank you, Councillor.

I think I'll answer that from the licensing perspective because what we do is we do visit

licensed premises and some of these conditions were added on because that's what the applicant

volunteered and some of them end up at committees, some of them as I explained earlier gets granted

if we don't receive any representation.

But it is absolutely important that the license holder, including the designated premises

supervisor ensure that all the staff at the licensed premises who are working for them

are fully aware of what the conditions are. That's an expectation and it's their responsibility

because they would be putting their license at risk if those conditions were not upheld.

So we would look at that. And the other option if premises license applications

came, if the only way we could remove them is by either, and we do this through action

plans, we can ask, engage with them if we've received a complaint to review the condition,

make it more tightened, dependent on what the issues were, or if they apply for a variation

and the variation applications was before the committee, they could look to review the

license conditions and make them a bit more robust.

But we can't just, unfortunately, we can't just remove those conditions, but we could

attend, do a compliance visit ensuring that the license holder and the designated premises

supervisor is making sure that they're having those conversations with staff.

In terms of minimum pricing, it is a mandatory condition, and one of the things we do is

to ensure that that condition is upheld through the licensing visits or if we received a complaint,

we would then look to ensure that those conditions are being upheld. But again, we can't just

remove that condition of the license.

Thanks. Yeah, so just to reaffirm what that sounds like, and I think maybe this is just

the case is that unless something happens,

unless someone reports something,

if there's a shopkeeper that's bending those rules

in some way, we don't really know, do we?

Unless there's a response,

it's like a tree falling in the woods.

We do know when we are doing,

I know we've done a lot of work on Truth in Broadway,

so we've done proactive visits around that area

because as you can tell from the presentation, it's the hotspot area.

So we've done like a community partnership visits with community safety.

And so we've done visits in that area.

But in generally, we can have a licensed premises where we've got 1 ,400 licensed premises in

one's work.

But you know, when we get a complaint, that's when we review them.

But we do do proactive visits as well.

Thank you.

And just to clarify, proactive visits is you turning up

without them expecting them to, and you checking

that they're doing the right things.

Yeah, exactly that.

Thank you.

Councilman Hunt, please.

Just a quickie to follow up on that.

I know sometimes we do like mystery shopping,

don't we, as well, and say,

I don't really with cigarette sales and stuff

and things like that.

So that's another way you can check out

what's going on on a particular hotspot.

Sorry, Chair.

Sarah Quinn, head of commercial regulation.

Can I just add on this that all of this data

that we're gathering is being a really, really useful

exercise.

So we have got thoughts about being a lot,

well, we are very sort of Intel and data led.

So as we get into a lot more of this granular data,

it will feed back to a lot of our officers and enforcement

teams and partnership working.

And we can look to where we then put our resources going

forward.

We do rely on complaints and information coming through

because that really does help us target it.

And we do do, yes, test purchasing with our trading standards team

and those sorts of things.

So hopefully all of this will feed into a much bigger picture going forward.

Thank you.

Licensing Committee - Wednesday 23 October 2024, 6:30pm - Wandsworth Council Webcasting

Licensing CommitteeWednesday, 23rd October 2024 at 6:30pm

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Wednesday, 23rd October 2024 at 6:30pm