Issue - meetings

Environmental Services and Sustainability Portfolio

To consider report HCS/18 of the Head of Community Services, which was referred to the meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny Commission held on 25 November 2019.

The Leader of the Council presented report HCS/018 of the Head of Community Services, which detailed the outcome of the statutory consultation on the proposed revision of the Council’s Statement of Licensing Policy. The Council had received two responses including one from the Director of Public Heath (West Sussex County Council). It was noted that as Crawley Borough Council was the Licensing Authority it was required under the Gambling Act 2005 to approve, following consultation, a Statement of its Licensing policy under the Gambling Act 2005 every three years.

The Cabinet noted the Overview and Scrutiny Commission’s support for the recommendations from its meeting on 25 November 2019, as presented by Councillor Rana and as detailed in the Commission’s comments to Cabinet.

Councillor Mullins commented that as part of the consideration of the report, it had been considered by the Licensing Committee at its meeting on 11 November 2019, which supported adoption of the revised policy.

RESOLVED

1)            That the Cabinet notes and endorsed the proposed revised Statement of Licensing Policy Gambling Act 2005 (2020- 2022) (as set out in Appendix A report HCS/018).

2)            That Full Council be recommended to approve and adopt the proposed revised Statement Licensing Policy Gambling Act 2005 (2020-2022) set out in Appendix A of report HCS/018

Reasons for the Recommendations

It is a statutory requirement under the Gambling Act 2005 for a Licensing Authority to prepare a Statement of its Licensing policy every three years. The Council is the Licensing Authority for the borough of Crawley. It is therefore necessary to agree and develop the proposed strategy to discharge the Council’s role in its capacity of Licensing Authority for the 3 year period 2020 – 2022.

To consider report HCS/18 of the Head of Community Services.

The Commission considered report HCS/18 of the Head of Community Services. The report documented the proposed amendments to the Council’s revised Statement of Licensing Policy Gambling Act 2005 (2020-2022), which had been generated from responses following a 12 week public consultation exercise that concluded on 20th September 2019.

Throughout the introduction with the Environmental Health Manager, it was recognised that proposed revised Review of Statement of Licensing Policy Gambling Act 2005 did not take into account licences for operators or machines (such as fixed odds betting terminals) as these were the responsibility of the Gambling Commission. The Council was responsible for the issuing of licences for premises only.  There was also acknowledgement that there had been a lack of feedback from the public consultation with responses received only from the Gambling Commission and the Director of Public Health.  

Recommendations

That the Commission agreed to support the recommendations.