The Ups And Downs Of Premises Licence Reviews - What The Statistics Don't Show!

According to Legal Data compiler Sweet and Maxwell for the year upto 1st April 2010 the number of premises licence reviews has increased by 19% to 1334 from 1125 the previous year. However the number of premises licence revocations for the same period has decreased slightly from 154 to 151 during the same period.

For those involved in dealing with premises licence reviews these figures will come as no surprise as there is undoubtedly an ever increasing emphasis on enforcement action being taken and in particular Reviews. The majority (804 or 60%) were commenced by the police - again no surprise. As a firm those proceedings commenced by the police are by far the most common upon which we advise our clients. However what is not revealed (and may not be available but would be very interesting) is what percentage once started result in further representations, whether from responsible authorities or residents and what percentage actually proceed to a contested hearing (rather than a compromise to the satisfaction of all parties which may be indicative of the fact proceedings were premature!).

Also of interest would be in what percentage the party commencing the proceedings achieve what they seek as against what percentage are effectively "refused" due to insufficient evidence being produced at the hearing when actually put to proof. This may be of increasing importance bearing in mind the recent Government proposal to alter the burden of proof in favour of the police and against the premises licence holder!

As a final point it is to the great credit of the trade that of the many tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of licensed premises in England and Wales only a very very small proportion of them are (on these figures) even subject to formal action whatever the outcome - something we should all bear in mind.