Agenda and minutes

The Democratic Services Officer read out the procedure.

Councillor Mark Shelford had a non-disclosable pecuniary interest as a paid member of the Avon Fire Authority and decided not to participate in this meeting of the Sub-Committee, as he had been advised that a reasonable person may perceive the interest as likely to prejudice his judgement. Councillor Will Sandry substituted.

At this point in the meeting declarations of interest are received from Members in any of the agenda items under consideration at the meeting. Members are asked to indicate:

(a) The agenda item number in which they have an interest to declare.

(b) The nature of their interest.

(c) Whether their interest is a disclosable pecuniary interest or an other interest,  (as defined in Part 2, A and B of the Code of Conduct and Rules for Registration of Interests)

Any Member who needs to clarify any matters relating to the declaration of interests is recommended to seek advice from the Council’s Monitoring Officeror a member of his staff before the meeting to expedite dealing with the item during the meeting.

Councillor Roberts declared an interest as a season-ticket holder of Bath Rugby Club. Councillor Sandry declared an interest in that in his capacity as Mayor of Bath he had invited representatives of Bath Rugby Club to attend a future civic event. Both members declared that they would not be influenced by these interests and that they could determine the application on its merits.

There was none.

These were approved as a correct record and signed by the Chair.

The Chair drew attention to the procedure to be followed for the next item of business.

Applicant for Review: Avon Fire and Rescue Service, represented by John Brown (Technical Fire Safety Officer) and Nigel Jagger (Technical Fire Safety Officer)

Licence Holder: Bath Rugby Club, represented by Alex Cohen (Operations Manager)

The parties confirmed that they had received and understood the procedure to be followed for the hearing.

The Senior Public Protection Officer presented the report. She explained that Avon Fire and Rescue had applied for a review of the premises licence for Bath Rugby Club under section 51 of the Licensing Act 2003 on the ground that the matters alleged in paragraph 5.3 of the report undermined the licensing objectives of the prevention of crime and disorder and public safety. Bath Rugby Club had responded to the application. There were no representations to the application from other responsible authorities or from other persons.

Mr Brown stated the case for the Applicant for Review. He said that as part of his duties he had gone to the Recreation Ground for an inspection at the evening match with Gloucester on the 5^th February 2016. As part of this inspection he had spoken to a steward at the clubhouse bar and asked her questions about the procedures in place and the capacity limit for the bar. She had been unable to answer these questions. He immediately spoke to a more senior member of staff, who issued clickers to the stewards to enable them to monitor the number of people entering the bar. He visited the bar half an hour later and found that people were queueing on the stairs leading up to the bar. There was jostling and people began falling backwards down the stairs. He and his colleague from the Fire Service began moving people from the staircase and a system of one-in one-out entry to the bar was imposed.  His concerns about this incident had led him to request this licence review.

Subsequently he had spoken to Mr Cohen about safety procedures at the ground. He was pleased to note that Mr Cohen has appointed The Event Safety Shop, a company with extensive experience of managing events in the Bristol area, to provide safety advice and an independent fire consultant. Mr Cohen had agreed a new set of safety procedures with Mr Brown. However, the Fire and Rescue Service was proposing that for the two remaining games in this season a reduced capacity limit for the bar of 150 for the next game and 200 for the last game should be imposed. During the close season there would be a further review of procedures and structural changes at the ground, after which it was hoped that capacity limit would again be able to be set as near as possible to the current 300.

Members put questions to Mr Brown.

How was the original capacity limit calculated?

By a risk assessment. There are various guidance documents providing advice on calculating capacity limits. Floor space is one factor. The number of available exits is also taken into account.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 158.