The Head of Regulatory Services and Community Safety will submit a report to seek agreement of the licence fees for 2021/22 where the Council has discretion over the level of fee charged.

This report will follow as a supplement.

The Head of Regulatory Services and Community Safety had submitted a report to seek agreement of the licence fees for 2021/22 where the Council has discretion over the level of fee charged.

David Stevens, Business Regulation Team Manager, introduced the report. No increase in fees were proposed for the forthcoming Council Year. The report noted that, given the curtailment of street trading in  2020, consent holders were only charged for the time when they had traded.

Attention was drawn to special provisions, introduced in 2020, concerning the use of tables and chairs on pavements outside premises. These included a temporary, streamlined means of securing a permit, known as a “pavement licence” for a charge of £100.  This temporary provision was due to expire in September 2021. The existing, more expensive, “Street Café Licence”  which fulfils a similar function would remain in place and continue after this date. The former had unfortunately been left off the appendix to the report before the  Committee but would be included in the version to be agreed by Cabinet and  Council. This would require the following changes to the appendix.

·       The Annual fee for a Street Café Licence  - currently on line 152 of the main corporate F&C list, should be £815 for 21/22, not £100. However,

·       An additional line should be added directly below it for “Pavement Licence (Temp.)” with a fee of £100

The General Purposes Licensing Committee resolved to:

1.    Agree the licence fees and charges for 2021/22 as set out in Appendix A, subject to the amendment noted above and recommend them to Council.