What is Premises Licence
What is Premises Licence: A premises licence is required if you are going to provide licensable activities at that premises. New application A premises licence is required if licensable activities are provided at those premises. A premises licence can authorise one or more licensable activity and can be issued by the local licensing authorities for premises situated within its geographical area. Licensable activities include the sale of alcohol, provision of regulated entertainment, and the provision of late-night refreshments.
Updating a Premises Licence
If you’re thinking of making changes to your premises you’ll almost certainly need to apply to have your licence updated before you do anything. This is also known as Premises Licence variation. Changes to the layout of your building, the hours you’re open or any of the non-mandatory conditions stated in the licence all require approval from your local authority.
Minor changes to layout or some non-mandatory conditions can be completed within 15 working days. Bigger changes or anything that affects the number of hours you open for the sale of alcohol will require a fuller application and takes at least 28 days to complete. As with applying for a new licence, we can help you with every aspect of updating your current licence including appearing in front of Committees on your behalf if any objections are raised.
Examples of what can be updated on your premises licence include:
- Hours of a permitted licensable activity
- Adding or removing licensable activities
- Amending, adding or removing conditions on a licence
- Altering any aspect of the layout of the premises that appears on the plan
Minor variations
Minor variations to a premises licence will be accepted by the licensing authority without a full consultation if they are satisfied that they will not adversely affect the licensing objectives. The Minor Variation process is quicker and simpler than the full variation process, and carries a lower cost. Note, only the premises licence holder can make an application to vary the licence.
Minor variations to premises licences include:
- Small changes to the structure or layout of a premises
- The addition of late night refreshment or entertainment
- Small changes to licensing hours
- Revisions, removals and additions of conditions]
Full variations
If a minor variation cannot be used then a full variation process will be required. This follows the same application procedure as applying for a new premises licence, and has an application time of 28 days. Any minor application that has been refused must be submitted as a full variation, including any fees that come with it.
Premises Licence Variation Costs
There are a large number of factors that can affect the complexity of a variation application and these include but not exclusively: The content of the Statement of Licensing Policy for the area where the site is located whether there is a Cumulative Impact Policy in place type and size of the premises whether it is in a residential area hours of operation, type of operation type of venue type of cliental trading history
We tend to split the variation process into two sections: application and post application:
Application
- For the application we charge a fixed fee between £499 and £2000 taking account of the individual complexity of your matter.
- This includes: Taking your instructions and advising you on the steps to promote the licensing objectives within your application
- Advising you on the plans you are required to submit with your application. You must provide suitable plans, but we can put you in touch with people to assist with the preparation of plans if need be.
- Completing the application form for a variation of a premises licence (including the operating schedule) in accordance with your instructions and submitting this to the local licensing authority.
- Providing guidance on the fee levels payable to the licensing authority.
- Preparing copies of the premises licence application for disclosure to the responsible authorities and serving copies of the application on the responsible authorities.
- Drafting the notices advertising the premises licence application and submitting the notice to the local newspaper.
- Providing you with the Public notice(s) advertising the variation of a premises licence application and advising you where and how this should be done in order to comply with the requirements of the Licensing Act 2003.
- Providing a Designated Premises Supervisor (DPS) consent form for signature by a personal licence holder proposed by yourself.
- Checking the licence once granted and correcting any errors with the licensing authority.
Post Application
Once the application has been submitted there are a number of outcomes which would affect the overall cost:
- No representations Received – If within 28 days of submission, your application attracted no representations, the application would be automatically granted and there would be no further charges from us.
- Representations Received – if representations are received, we would try and resolve them through mediation with a view to avoiding a Committee hearing. Time spent on mediation would be charged on the agreed hourly rate and depending on the nature and amount of representations this could be between 1 and 5 hours.
- Hearing – It may be necessary to go to a hearing for which we usually charge on a time spent basis at the agreed hourly rate and this is required to take place within 20 working days of the end of the representation period. Again we would discuss the likely costs of such with you at that time.
- Appeal – Usually on a time spent charge based on the hourly rates set out below. Depending on the nature of the appeal this could be between 5 and 40 hours work and charged on our hourly rates.
Premises licence applications:
There are also a number of disbursements and expenses that we will need to discharge on your behalf for all premises licence applications:
- Application fee payable to the local authority – based on rateable value of premises.
- These fees can be found on our application fees page. Advertising fee – it is a requirement to advertise the application in the local press. We use a specialist agent who gets favourable rates and typesets the advert to be the most cost effective. Depending on publication these usually cost between £150 and £400 + VAT.
- Agent to display public notices – it is a requirement to display a copy of the notice that appears in the local press and on the outside of your premises. We have a long-standing relationship with an agent who, if you are unable to arrange to put these notices up yourself can do so on your behalf for £165 + VAT. This includes the check of notices and provision of a witness statement.
- Special delivery charges to serve applications – it may be necessary to serve the application by special delivery, if this is the case this will cost between £10 and £20 plus VAT to do so. These fees depend on the size and weight of the letters we will be sending and we only charge you what we get charged by Royal Mail.
- Plans – we require 1:100 sized plans of the premises. The licensed area is then required to be red lined. We are able to do this in house along with any printing. For this we charge £1.50 per a1 sheet. We require 12 copies of each plan. This works out at £18.00 + VAT for a venue with one floor.
