Agenda and minutes

The Democratic Services Officer read out the procedure.

Councillor Michael Norton substituted for Cllr Caroline Roberts.

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.

There were none.

There was none.

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

The Committee is asked to consider passing the following resolution:

“the Committee having been satisfied that the public interest would be better served by not disclosing relevant information, in accordance with the provisions of Section 100(A)(4) of the Local Government Act 1972, RESOLVES that the public shall be excluded from the meeting for the following item(s) of business and the reporting of the meeting be prevented under Section 100A(5A), because of the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in paragraphs 1 and 2 of Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the Act, as amended.   

The Committee having been satisfied that the public interest would be better served by not disclosing relevant information, in accordance with the provisions of Section 100(A)(4) of the Local Government Act 1972, RESOLVED that the public should be excluded from the meeting for agenda item 17 and the reporting of this item be prevented under Section 100A(5A), because of the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in paragraphs 1 and 2 of Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the Act, as amended.   

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

The hearing of this application had been deferred from 14^th June 2016.

Mr CJD confirmed that he had received and understood the procedure to be followed for the meeting.

The Senior Public Protection Officer summarised the report and provided Members with copies of a DBS certificate, a written statement from Mr CJD and a reference submitted on his behalf. The hearing was adjourned to allow Members time to study these documents.

After the hearing reconvened, Mr CJD stated his case and was questioned by Members.

Following further adjournment the Sub-Committee RESOLVED to refuse Mr CJD’s application for a combined Hackney Carriage/Private Hire Driver’s Licence.

Reasons

Members have had to determine an application for a combined Hackney Carriage/Private Hire Driver’s Licence. In doing so they took account of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976, Human Rights Act 1998, case law and the Council’s Policy.

Consideration of this application had been deferred from 14th June 2016 when the applicant was unable to attend. Mr CJD had been warned that should he fail to attend for this hearing, the matter could be dealt with in his absence.

Members had to decide whether the applicant was a fit and proper person to hold a licence taking into account all the circumstances.

Members took account of the applicant’s written statement, reference and his oral representations and balanced these against the information disclosed on the DBS certificate.

Members noted that BANES’ Policy expects that an applicant will not have been convicted of a serious motoring offence during the previous five years. This part of the policy was relevant to Mr CJD as he has a conviction for serious motoring offences in 2012. 

Whilst Mr CJD was very frank about his past conduct and accepted that his record was bad; he explained that he used to think he was untouchable.

Taking into account the Council’s policy, the lack of mitigating circumstances for Mr CJD’s offending behaviour and breach of community orders, he did not satisfy members that he was a fit and proper person to hold a combined hackney carriage/private hire driver’s licence. As such, his application is refused.

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

Applicant: Eiderdown Ltd, represented by Nicola Smith (Solicitor), Ian Taylor (Owner of Villa Magdala), Caroline Browning (General Manager & DPS), Jonathan Walker (Managing Director)

Other Persons: Ceris Humphreys (Chair, Henrietta Park Residents Association), Mrs Tucker (Resident)

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

The Senior Public Protection officer summarised the application. She explained that the applicant was seeking to vary the current premises licence as set out in paragraph 5.3 of the report. Representations received from the Other Persons related to the licensing objectives of the prevention of crime and disorder and the prevention of public nuisance. Additional information from the applicant, the Henrietta Park Residents Association and Mr and Mrs Herve and a representation from Mr and Mrs Tucker, submitted in time but originally wrongly rejected as irrelevant, had been circulated to Members and the parties after the publication of the agenda. She invited the Sub-Committee to determine the application.

Ms Smith, for the applicant, requested leave to submit in evidence letters of support for Villa Magdala received by the applicant but rejected by the Senior Public Protection Officer in advance of the hearing on the grounds that they were positive representations received out of time. Ms Smith submitted that the letters were additional information and not representations, and so were not subject to the 28-day time limit for the submission of representations. The Sub-Committee adjourned to receive advice from the Senior Legal Adviser.

Following the adjournment the Senior Legal Adviser informed the parties that she had advised the Committee that in her view the additional statements were representations. This was because Regulation 18 of the Hearing Regulations taken together with sections 34 and 35 of the Licensing Act 2003 and paragraph 9.39 of the Secretary of State’s Guidance provide that representations are statements about the likely effect of an application on the licensing objectives, and can be statements in favour of, as well as against, an application. In response Ms Smith submitted that the statements were not, in fact, about the likely effect of the application on the licensing objectives, and so were additional information. Mrs Humphreys was given the opportunity to comment on the legal advice given and the request for late admission of these letters. She said that if the Sub-Committee decided that the statements were additional information, she would object to their admission at this late stage, as she believed that the applicant had had previous opportunities to share them with the Residents’ Association. She also noted that people who had wished to submit representations to the application out of time had had them rejected.

Following a further adjournment the Sub-Committee ruled that the statements were representations which had not been submitted in time and could not be taken into consideration.

Ms Smith stated the case for the applicant. She noted that the Other Persons had raised issues relating to covenants, legislation and the conservation area. She submitted that remedies could be sought in relation  ...  view the full minutes text for item 19.