Apologies for absence were received from Cllrs William Lambert, Derek Sales, Ronald Bowman, Leslie Hills and John Loughlin.  Cllrs Bronwen McGarrity, Lyn Milner and Andrea Webb attended as substitutes for Cllrs William Lambert, Derek Sales and Ronald Bowman respectively.

The Minutes of the meeting held on 21 September 2010 were signed by the Chairman.

No declarations of interest were made.

The report was introduced by the Senior Licensing Officer.  The draft Statement of Licensing Policy had been discussed at length at the previous Licensing Committee meeting on 21 September 2010.  Consistent with other Kent authorities no responses had been received through the consultation process.

She went on to say that the Government had proposed some changes to the review process for the future insofar as any review will only be undertaken on an “as and when” basis; when, for example there were changes to the legislation rather than a statutory review every three years.  Any proposed legislative changes would not be implemented until 2012.

Resolved that

(1)        the Committee endorsed the draft Statement of Licensing Policy to be put before the Council for approval on 7 December 2010;  

(2)        the officers be thanked for their work on reviewing the Council’s licensing policy

The Senior Licensing Officer introduced the report and reminded the Members that it is not a mandatory requirement to have such a licensing policy in place and approval of the policy can be made by the Committee.  The policy had been put out to consultation from 22 September to 2 November 2010.  Despite the widespread circulation of the consultation no responses were received.  It is the intention to publish the policy statement as soon as possible so that it is in place and available for potential applicants to refer to well in advance of the operational date of 1 April 2011.  All applications would be decided by a Licensing Panel and not by officers.  The legislative timetable is such that no licences will be issued before September 2011 thus giving plenty of time for Member training.

Members were interested to know whether there were any premises currently in the borough that offered this kind of entertainment.  The Senior Licensing Officer said that as far a she was aware there were none. 

Resolved that the draft Statement of Licensing Policy for Sex Establishments and Sexual Entertainments Venues be approved to come into effect on 1 April 2011.