No apologies for absence were received.

Cllr Hayre declared that he was a personal license holder.

The Licensing panel were asked to consider a full variation application of a premises license for The Page, 1-2 Parrock Street, Gravesend, Kent, DA12 1EW. The Panel were asked to determine the application for a full variation of a premise license following the submission of evidence from the licensee and Environmental Health.

The panel were information that on Monday 20 May 2024, a full variation application for The Page had been received. The application was to increase the hours for live music, recorded music, late night refreshment and the sale by retail of alcohol. The applicant had agreed with Kent Police to amend annex three, condition nine of the current license to cover door supervisors on a Sunday – found at appendix C.

On Monday 3 June 2024, an objection was received from Environmental Protection in relation to the public nuisance objective. On Thursday 13 June 2024, they submitted further supporting evidence, including video footage.

The Chair asked the Senior Environmental Health Technician to make his representation, and the following points were raised:

• Upon receipt of the application to extend their hours, Environmental Protection did consider it, but there was a history of noise complaints going back to August 2023. Whilst they did acknowledge that there were some occasions where there was not a nuisance noise, there were frequent claims of nuisance noise, which had been witnessed by officers on two separate occasions.
• Numerous video evidence had been submitted to support this claim.
• Environmental Protection had tried informal approaches to try and resolve the issue, such as site visits and sound tests, but these did not achieve the results they had hoped for. Due to this, environmental protection had to take enforcement action – this started with a community protection warning, which then progressed to a noise abatement notice and a community protection notice.
• They did an out of hours visit, which showed that they had breached the community protection notice which resulted in a £100 fixed penalty notice.
• The applicant did take some action in terms of sound proofing, which initially appeared to have positive results and the case was closed.
• Upon the receipt of the applicant’s submission for an extension of their hours, Environmental Protection thought it was prudent to go back to the complainant to ask how things were - the complainant was not informed of the application.
• The complainant had responded that there had been reoccurring noise and that whilst the applicant had been responsive when they had called, they had to be insistent with the calls.
• Environmental Protection would want to see a consistent sustained improvement with a lack of noise nuisance for around 6 – 12 months before consideration was given to an extension of hours. They advised 12 months in order to cover all seasons.

• Trust had broken down due to various issues such as the premises advertising a five-star food hygiene rating, but a food hygiene inspection had not yet taken place. The applicant advised this was an IT error. Environmental Protection  ...  view the full minutes text for item 15.