Department for Culture Media and Sport
Alcohol, entertainment and late night refreshment licensing is administered by licensing authorities, usually your local council.
A licensing authority exists to carry out licensing functions under the Licensing Act 2003. It does not carry out environmental health or planning functions, although it may consist of people who work in those areas.
Most licensing authorities will be local councils. The main licensing authorities, as defined in the Act, are:
The Act also specifies that the Sub-Treasurer of the Inner Temple and Under-Treasurer of the Middle Temples, the Common Council of the City of London and the Council of the Isles of Scilly will be licensing authorities for their respective jurisdictions.
Licensing authorities establish dedicated licensing committees with 10 to 15 members to carry out their functions. The licensing committee may delegate its functions to a sub-committee of at least three members or, for some functions, to an officer of the licensing authority.
If there is a legal reason why an individual should not to be involved in a particular licensing decision, the process will show this and the member has a duty to disqualify themselves from the decision.
Licensing authorities operate according to four licensing objectives, to make sure that their activities are carried out in the public interest:
The licensing objectives were developed between 1998 and 2001 after extensive consultation and a lengthy review of the previous licensing law.
A licensing authority may only restrict licensable activities if the activities do not support the licensing objectives. Any local representations objecting to a licence application or review of an application should support the licensing objectives.
Following the licensing objectives and Guidance, licensing authorities can:
Licensing authorities must publish a ‘statement of licensing policy’ every three years, which sets out how they intend to carry out their functions. The licensing policy can be revised where there of a high concentration of a type of premises in one area. This is known as ‘cumulative impact’.
Every licence application for a new premises licence, club premises certificate or variation of existing licences or certificates, can be considered by expert professionals, for example the police and fire authorities. Local residents are also entitled to give their view.
In relation to decisions about licence and club premises certificate applications, the licensing authority's discretion only affects the decision in cases where representations are made by "interested parties" such as local residents and "responsible authorities" such as the police. Representations can be positive or negative but must relate to the licensing objectives.
Rights to appeal licensing authority decisions in the magistrates' court are set out in Schedule 5 of the Licensing Act 2003. The Act allows for local authorities to act in the interests of local residents, local groups and other interested parties when premises are not performing well or are causing a nuisance.
All licensing authorities must keep a register containing a record of personal licences, premises licences and club premises certificates they issue, temporary events notices they receive, matters listed in Schedule 3 to the Act, and the further information listed in The Licensing Act 2003 (Licensing authority's register) (other information) Regulations 2005 (PDF 53k).
You can inspect the register of licences during office hours at the office of the licensing authority without charge.
Extracts from the register will be supplied to anyone who asks. Some licensing authorities may charge a fee for this.