Agenda and minutes

The Democratic Services Officer advised the meeting of the procedure.

There were none.

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 Chair explained the procedure to be followed for the licensing hearing.

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.   

RESOLVED to note that this item had been included on the agenda by error and that the whole meeting should take place in open session.

Applicant: Castle Farm Organics Ltd, represented by Mark Edwards (Premises Licence Holder) and Robert Eldon (Designated Premises Supervisor)

Other persons: Cllr Cherry Beath, Cllr Neil Butters, Cllr Bob Goodman, Ruth Turner, Tina Trimbell, Professor Susannah Mayhew, Chris Winpenny (Chair of South Stoke Parish Council), Val Lyon, Michael Earp, Michael Hammer, Des Wighton (Monkton Combe Parish Council), Ann Stewart, John Lister, Fred Sanders, Jennifer Torrance and John Webster

The Chair explained the procedure to be followed at the hearing and the parties confirmed that they understood the procedure.

The Senior Public Protection Officer summarised the application. She explained that the applicant was seeking to vary the premises licence as detailed in paragraph 5.3 of the report. The application included the offer of two additional conditions:

No Live Music, Recorded Music, Performance of Dance or Anything Similar shall take place in the outside area beyond 23:00 on any day;

Except for access and egress, all doors and windows shall remain closed when Live or Recorded Music is provided after 23:00 hours.

156 representations of objection had been received from Other Persons, relating mostly to the licensing objective of the prevention of public nuisance. 4 representations of support had been received from Other Persons within the statutory deadline, which stated that the premises were friendly, safe and compliant. Hard copies of additional information which had been submitted by two Other Persons and by Mr Edwards, which had been circulated in advance of the meeting, were available. No representations had been received from the Responsible Authorities.

Mr Edwards stated the case for the applicant. He thought that the amount of negative comment that the application had attracted was due to two factors. The first was the compendious nature of the application, which might suggest that there was an intention to have late-night music all week or to stage pop festivals. The other was continuous friction between Castle Farm and the parish council over the past twenty years while the business was being developed. There had always been strong objections from the parish council to every planning application submitted by the farm, including the application that had allowed the café to be opened last summer.

The premises was in fact a small organic, vegetarian café situated in the front part of the farm, which could accommodate about thirty people and had a small courtyard outside. The café proved very popular, so a decision was made to apply for an alcohol licence with fairly limited hours (11:00 to 17:00) to allow visitors to have a glass of beer, wine or farm-made cider. He now wanted to extend the licence to allow for supper clubs and other small evening events. Such events had been authorised since last summer by the use of Temporary Event Notices. He believed that there had been no noise nuisance or other problems caused by these events. He noted that Environmental Health had made no objections to this application.

The café is located in a sealed building constructed from twelve inch-thick concrete, well  ...  view the full minutes text for item 94.