Home / Committee Minutes / Your Council / Minutes, Meetings and Reports / Committee Minutes / Dundee Licensing Forum - 04/09/2012

Dundee Licensing Forum - 04/09/2012

At a MEETING of the DUNDEE LICENSING FORUM held at Dundee on 4th September, 2012.

 

Present:-

 

Dundee Licensing Forum

 

Mr Chris SLOAN

Mr Paul SNAITH

Mr Bryan COLEMAN

Ms Morag BEATTIE

Mr Paul BALLARD

Ms Vered HOPKINS

Mr Eric KNOX

Ms Katrina FINNON

Mr Matt LANDSBURGH

Ms Liz KAY

Mr Craig SOMERS

 

Dundee Licensing Board

 

Councillor David BOWES

 

In attendance

 

Inspector Mark DUNCAN, Police

Kenny McKAIG, Legal Manager, Dundee City Council

Carole ROBERTSON, Health Improvement Officer, Dundee City Council

 

Apologies were intimated from Depute Lord Provost Roberts, Councillor Brian Gordon, Yvonne Tosh, Garvie Jamieson, Douglas Winton, Simon Goulding, Graeme Petrie and Jonathan Stewart.

 

Chris SLOAN, Convener, in the Chair

 

I MEMBERSHIP

 

(a) COMMUNITY REPRESENTATIVES (2)

 

The Forum formally appointed Yvonne Tosh and Garvie Jamieson.

 

II MINUTE OF MEETING OF 3RD JULY, 2012

 

The minute of the above meeting was submitted and approved.

 

III MATTERS ARISING

 

There were no matters arising.

 

IV DRAFT OVERPROVISION REPORT

 

Carole Robertson gave a presentation on the draft report on Alcohol Overprovision in Dundee which had been commissioned to provide a citywide profile of alcohol availability and related harm and to assist the Licensing Board in the development of its statement on overprovision. The presentation covered statistics detailing availability of alcohol, consumption levels, health related harm, crime and disorder and social and economic harm arising from misuse of alcohol; example of alcohol overprovision assessments produced by other local authorities were also provided.

 

Thereafter, the Forum discussed aspects of the report in more detail:-

 

- correlation between availability/price and alcohol misuse

- 'hidden' home consumption prevalent in less deprived area

- granting of superfluous licences due to policy of issuing block extensions

- analysis of drinking locations in relation to areas of alcohol related harm/mortality

- SALSUS information relative to underage drinking/parental provision of alcohol

- displacement effect of licence locations

 

The Forum noted that a revised statement in overprovision would be included in the Board's Statement of Licensing Policy from late 2013 and approved the five recommendations contained in the draft overprovision report, namely:-

 

(i) The information presented in this report could be improved, especially in relation to the capacity of off-licensed premises. Recommended that work should be undertaken involving the Licensing Board, Trading Standards, Planning, Rates and other relevant departments to try and establish a much better measure of alcohol sales volume from retail premises. This would provide more accurate information on which the Board could bases its licensing decisions, taking into account the likely impact on the amount of alcohol to be made available within any community;

 

(ii) Consideration should be given to the frequency and duration of regular licensing extensions, for example, in the summer period and around Christmas/New Year so that all extensions were to be specifically applied for and justified. There should be no assumption of regular extensions;

 

(iii) Consideration should be given to adopting a much more targeted and focussed approach to licensing extensions and occasional licences granted to specific local events, for example, the Dundee Jazz week and Broughty Ferry Festival;

 

(iv) The Licensing Board should explicitly acknowledge the added risk of making alcohol available in close proximity to other specific premises, including for example schools and betting shops. This should then be considered by the planning board; and that

 

(v) this report presented a large amount of routinely available and specially collected data. It did not include the views of local people and communities and these were vital in planning the future direction of alcohol licensing in any locality. The Forum therefore further recommended that Dundee City Local Licensing Forum should, with support from the ADP and community planning partners, lead a process of consultation with communities around overprovision. All the Local Community Planning Partnerships in the City had identified alcohol as a problem issue for their area, more proactive and direct engagement with these groups should be used to inform the Forum's response to both this report, and the overall Licensing Policy for the City.

 

V DUNDEE CITY LICENSING BOARD STATEMENT OF LICENSING POLICY 2010 - 2013

 

On a reference to Article V of the minute of meeting of this Forum of 3rd July, 2012 the Board's current Licensing Policy was submitted for information.

 

Kenny McKaig, Legal Manager, Dundee City Council spoke briefly to the policy and confirmed that formal consultation on the updated policy would commence in May, 2013.

 

VI A O C B

 

(a) FOCUS ON ALCOHOL CO-ORDINATOR

 

It was reported that Kirsty Wilkinson would shortly be leaving her post as Focus on Alcohol Co-ordinator; Forum members recorded their thanks for her input to matters discussed at the Forum during her tenure.

 

VII DATE OF NEXT MEETING

 

Tuesday, 4th December, 2012 at 2 pm.