Camden Council was forced to halt proposals for major changes to its Statement of Licensing Policy last month after receiving objections from the police, a housing association, and residents’ groups across the borough.
A meeting of councillors on Thursday 25 January was due to hear and recommend proposals for an updated policy — which would extend “framework hours” for alcohol sales and relax restrictions on clusters of licensed premises — to be put out for public consultation.
But a solitary committee officer announced to a nearly empty council chamber that the report on the proposals had been withdrawn and therefore the meeting would not go ahead.
A coalition of community groups — Bloomsbury Association, Bloomsbury Residents’ Action Group, Charlotte Street Association, Covent Garden Community Association, Kentish Town Road Association, Seven Dials Trust, and Tenants’ and Resident’s Association of Camden Town — had all raised objections to the proposals being put forward by the chair of the licensing committee, Cllr Jonathan Simpson MBE.
Simpson was awarded an MBE in 2021 after championing live music venues and cultural institutions.
In a letter published in the Camden New Journal the residents groups said the policy change “would have led to longer opening hours for pubs and bars across the borough, and made it easier to get new licences in areas that are already saturated with them”.
They said that the licensing meeting was cancelled at short notice “because the Council didn’t want the significant concerns raised by the Police to be discussed in public”.
In an earlier letter also published in the New Journal residents groups in south Camden wrote to say they shared “the concerns of the Delancey Street Residents’ Association (letters, CNJ, 28 December 2023) about conflicts of interest of councillors who have built their political identities around promoting Camden’s night-time economy”.
“Camden councillors are increasingly favouring commercial interests and later hours for alcohol consumption at the expense of the health and well-being of its resident population. This new licensing policy shows contempt for the residents of Camden and the communities we have built here,” they wrote.
The New Journal‘s sibling paper Westminster Extra also reported that an objection to the new policy had also been received from Police Inspector Stevie Bull as well as Soho Housing Association.
In a report commissioned by Camden to assess the operation of licensed premises, the specialist consultants found that residents across the borough were concerned about the noise nuisance from the increasing number of venues serving alcohol.
“Data from the Camden Licensing service highlights the fact that there were 1869 active premises licences in total [across the borough] at the end of March 2020, this figure had increased to 1968 active premises licences by late June 2021,” stated a report to the Licensing Committee in July 2021.
In Fitzrovia there were approximately 20 percent more licensed premises in 2023 than in 2019, according to Camden’s Licensing service.
However, many cultural venues are closing due to increased costs such as utilities, rent, and the impact of the cost-of-living crisis on customers.
Cllr Danny Beales, the cabinet member who is promoting a new evening and night-time strategy, has said that the council’s licensing policy is “not flexible enough” but that there needs to be “higher standards” in the management of licensed premises.
Camden residents have said they want to see more diversity in the evening and night-time economy — including less alcohol — and older residents, women and marginalised communities feel excluded for a number of reasons.
The view of the residents’ groups is that the changes proposed in Camden’s draft Statement of Licensing Policy do not address these issues. Instead the new policy would just allow venues to earn more money from the longer hours for sales of alcohol — adding to crime, disorder and noise nuisance.
The coalition of residents groups want the council to engage with them to find a way to balance “the needs of visitors and businesses with those of local people”.
Camden Council has said that a report on the updated policy will now be brought before the licensing committee at a future date before being put out for public consultation.
However the council has yet to say if it will amend the new policy to address the concerns raised by the residents’ groups.
The final Evening and Night-Time Strategy is due to be considered for approval by Cabinet on 28 February 2024.
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