Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
14 MARCH 2005
MR GEORGE
ROWLINSON, MR
RAY JEFFERSON,
MS CATHY
SAVAGE AND
MR SIMON
MILTON
Q1 Chairman: Good afternoon. Can I welcome
everyone to this evidence session on the evening economy and its
role in the urban renaissance. There are some familiar faces in
the room who I know participated in our earlier inquiry about
two years ago, so welcome back. Can I ask the first set of witnesses
if you would introduce yourselves?
Mr Rowlinson: I am George Rowlinson.
I am the Assistant Director for Public Protection at Cheltenham
Borough Council.
Mr Jefferson: My name is Ray Jefferson.
I am Director of Environment at Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council.
Ms Savage: Cathy Savage. I am
Town Centre Manager for Bolton.
Mr Milton: I am Simon Milton.
I am Leader of Westminster City Council. I am the token politician
in the line-up.
Q2 Chairman: Thank you very much. You
have a choice, either we can go straight to questions or if you
would like to make a brief statement then it is your prerogative
to do so.
Mr Milton: I think we have decided
to go straight to questions, Madam Chairman.
Q3 Chairman: Fine. I am having mutterings
in my left ear asking if you would speak up a little. Although
we can hear you, it is the people behind who have difficulty.
Perhaps I can bat off the questioning and just ask you, in your
experience in your three respective local authorities, how has
the evening economy developed over the last two to three years?
Mr Milton: Shall I start in Westminster?
We made a conscious decision three or four years ago that we wanted
to take action to restrain the growth of the late-night economy
because there had been a fantastic amount of growth in the 1990s
to a level where we felt that parts of Westminster, the West End
in particular, were saturated. We were experiencing many problems:
crime and disorder, social problems and operational problems.
We adopted a new licensing policy in 2000, the aim of which was
to restrain growth by making it more difficult to get new late
licences. As it happens, I think the market has also slowed a
little during the last two or three years because we now have
a situation where there are a large number of licensed premises
in the West End and, increasingly, they have to compete on price
promotions in order to survive.
Q4 Chairman: Any views from Bolton or
Cheltenham?
Mr Rowlinson: Certainly from Cheltenham's
viewpoint. As indicated in my written submission, for its size
Cheltenham has a disproportionate amount of late-night pubs and
clubs bringing with it a disproportionate amount of problems.
We set about looking at the dynamics of our night-time economy
as far back as 2001 and, quite independently of this Committee,
came to similar conclusions. We set about putting together a strategy
to provide a comprehensive and joined-up response to the problems
recognising that there are no magic wand solutions. We see the
meeting of the goals of our strategy as somewhat of a long-term
objective. For Members' consideration, if they are interested,
I do have copies of the strategy which are available.
Q5 Chairman: Thank you.
Mr Rowlinson: While we are succeeding
in delivering the strategy, we do find ourselves being frustrated
in one or two areas, not from a lack of will on our part but certainly
more from anomalies, ambiguities and contradictions in the system
within which we are forced to work. No doubt you will wish to
expand further on that later.
Q6 Chairman: Perhaps you could just give
us a hint of what the root cause of your frustration is?
Mr Rowlinson: I think some of
our main concerns are the relationships between the planning and
licensing functions. We came to slightly different conclusions
from this Committee with regard to the fact that we feel that
the planning process does have some role to play in the need and
the cumulative impact; so much so that we built in a provision
within our emerging local plan which will be overtaken under the
new provisions of planning under the local development framework.
The point about the existing planning system is that it is based
on land use, whereas the new local planning framework will be
on spatial awareness which will have regard to community impact.
Having built in this provision about the progression, proliferation
and extension of these types of premises, I found only last Thursday,
and I have yet to find the detail, that the planning inspector
has requested that it be withdrawn, but we did feel that we had
worked towards the goals of the local development framework. That
is one frustration. Certainly we do have some issues about drinks
promotions and also among my members about obtaining extra funding
from the main beneficiaries of the night-time economy to clear
up the mess that is left behind as a consequence.
Q7 Chairman: I think we will move on
to those areas. What is the view from Bolton on what has happened
over the last two or three years?
Mr Jefferson: Thank you, Chairman.
I suppose I wanted to bring a positive message. Ten years ago,
Bolton used to be a difficult place to go out for a night's entertainment
on a weekend. I do not think it is quite like that now, things
are much better. The positive message I would like to bring is
that prevention is better than cure. Provided that you do have
a consistent approach to enforcement and provided that you do
get close to your partners and you do have a coherent and co-ordinated
approach to managing the evening economy, you can keep things
on the right side, if I can put it that way. We have a Townsafe
Partnership in Bolton, as other towns do, which we think is beginning
to work very well and is partly administered by our Town Centre
Company, and Ms Savage represents the company here today. We have
worked very hard to get our Townsafe Partnership working well.
We have good enforcement activities out on the street which we
believe are keeping things going at a reasonable level.
Q8 Andrew Bennett: What you mean is you
have sent the yobs to Wigan.
Mr Jefferson: We would hope not.
They are not all pie-eaters in Bolton, they probably would not
go to Wigan. We believe that we have managed to keep the lid on
things, but maybe that is not the way to put it. We are trying
very hard. You do need consistent enforcement, you do need to
be out there taking the action, you do need to be taking an interest
and you do need your ambassadors. You need a whole variety of
initiatives to work together and that takes funding. That is one
of the points that I am sure we will come back to this afternoon,
the funding of all of this.
Q9 Chairman: Can I ask you and your colleagues
in the two other local authorities, is there any evidence over
the last few years that the more resources and more attention
you have had to give to what has been going on on the streets
of Bolton, Cheltenham and Westminster in the evening and late
at night has detracted from your daytime activities, if I can
call them that?
Mr Milton: Certainly we all understand
the nature of the problem much better than we used to. We have
had to because we have had to respond to an increasing number
of complaints from residents' groups and other businesses that
feel they have been negatively affected. What it has done is skew
resources. In my authority, we have had to increase massively
the amount of money that we spend on street cleansing in order
to cover the 24 hour period. There can be more people on the streets
of Westminster at three in the morning than at three in the afternoon;
the difference is that they are drunk and they make more mess.
We have had to increase massively expenditure and that has taken
resources from elsewhere in the council. The Police will tell
you the same thing and ditto for enforcement activities that the
council operates, so that has been the main effect we have got
to get to grips with.
Q10 Chairman: Have you had any evidence
that perhaps other non-alcohol selling businesses have been reluctant
to invest in properties near late-night drinking establishments?
Mr Milton: I am not sure that
I can give you evidence but certainly I can give you a lot of
anecdotal information of complaints received from businesses,
for example, in the Soho area involved in the media industry and
the creative industries who find that their journey to work in
the morning means that they have to negotiate the vomit from the
night before.
Q11 Chairman: So it is not just local
residents, it is local businesses as well?
Mr Milton: Yes.
Q12 Chairman: What about Bolton and Cheltenham?
Mr Jefferson: I do not think we
have quite the same problem, to be honest. It would be true to
say that night-time activities do skew resources and have progressively
done so, but I do not think I have got the same problem as my
colleague on the left here. It is different in degree. In recent
years we have been lucky to have attracted special funding for
our Town Centre Company and other activities which has helped
considerably to underpin some of the things that we have been
trying to do, like European funding and so on, so that helps.
Mr Rowlinson: I do not think there
is any evidence to indicate that there has been a lack of investment
as a consequence but certainly we have a similar situation to
Westminster with complaints from members of the public with regard
to the fouling of the public streets and urination on the streets.
We have directed some extra resources into the street cleaning
of the town but we find this extremely difficult because we are
faced with a reduction in our revenue support grant base of £900,000
year-on-year for the next four years, and that is on a revenue
grant base of something like £14.5 million. The thing that
really annoys my members is the lack of ability to tap into and
make the beneficiaries of the night-time economy pay for the turbulence
and the mess that they cause.
Q13 Chairman: Finally, you have all developed
night-time strategies in your towns, how co-operative have the
licensed trade and the operators been in working with you on these
strategies?
Mr Milton: You can answer that
question in two ways. The official organisations are very co-operative,
they want to work in partnership and they appear to be committed
but, sadly, you cannot underestimate the greed and stupidity of
some people in the licensed trade who are quite prepared to behave
badly. It was very interesting that when the Police undertook
some very, very well publicised blitzes at Christmas and last
summer, looking for licensees who were in breach of their licence,
something like 52% of the visits found there were underage sales
going on, and that was at a time when publicity was at its height.
Unfortunately, in some cases individual operators are quite prepared
to operate—
Q14 Chairman: Who were the main offenders?
Were they independent operators or were they big chains?
Mr Milton: Both.
Ms Savage: From Bolton's point
of view, we launched our scheme with the licensees on 1 September
last year and we have just reached 50% of the licensees who have
joined the membership scheme that we have. There is the odd one
or two who will not join unless they are forced to join, and you
will always find that with any licence or any scheme that you
have. It is very, very positive; they are very enthusiastic and
all willing to be part of something and work together to make
it a great partnership scheme.
Mr Rowlinson: I think there are
similar types of situations in Cheltenham. We have had a forum
with our licensed trade for quite some time—we call it Nightsafe—which
encompasses the clubs and the late-night public entertainment
licensed premises and are trying to bring into the fold the late-night
takeaways as well. They have been extremely co-operative with
regard to the Nightsafe initiatives and those include things like
drug screening initiatives of the nightclub clientele and only
a matter of three months ago we introduced the national Pubwatch
Scheme and during that period, on the "banned from one, banned
from all" basis, we have had 12 banning orders from the Nightsafe
scheme itself.
Q15 Chairman: Have the local police co-operated
with allowing photographs of the offenders to be circulated?
Mr Rowlinson: We have data information
sharing protocols in place, that is all covered. Certainly the
issue that we would like to have seen was a more robust stance
within the Department for Culture, Media and Sport's guidance
under the Licensing Act about joining these types of schemes.
We wanted to take a robust stance until the lawyers told us we
could not take a robust stance. However, there is an implicit
provision in our licensing policy statement whereby there is an
expectation that you will participate fully in the Nightsafe scheme
with the view being taken that without that participation that
could very well restrict the freedoms and flexibilities that you
may wish to indulge within the Licensing Act.
Q16 Mr O'Brien: You have outlined the
measures you have taken and the results of those. In the joined-up
governance with these local authority stakeholders, did the proposals
or the policies of the Government play any part in the results
that you have been explaining to us?
Mr Rowlinson: Which policies?
The DCMS?
Q17 Mr O'Brien: You have got different
departments—the Home Office, the Office of the Deputy Prime
Minister, a number of Government departments—have any of
those played a part in your results?
Mr Rowlinson: Certainly as far
as Cheltenham is concerned, the main driver has been the Crime
and Disorder Reduction Partnership with a heavy Home Office influence.
I must be honest and admit that I think some of the provisions
in the DCMS guidance serve to frustrate some of those lines of
communication and contact that were already there. Not to beat
about the bush, or not to put too fine a point upon this, it was
somewhat frustrating to receive some of the fairly nebulous guidance
that we got, it could have been a little more specific with regard
to what we can and what we cannot do.
Q18 Mr O'Brien: Were they too narrow?
Mr Rowlinson: I think they were
quite restrictive as to what we can and cannot do.
Q19 Mr O'Brien: What about Bolton and
Westminster?
Mr Milton: I would agree. The
only piece of Government contribution which I think has been extremely
positive is, as Cheltenham said, the Crime and Disorder Reduction
Partnership. We have taken that to very great lengths in Westminster
and we now have a jointly located Police and council licensing
team. They are managed together, they have joint tasking, and
they have developed between them a risk related inspection regime
whereby each month we draw up a list of 10 premises causing concern
based on data from violence, attacks, volume of crime, disorder
and environmental health complaints, and the premises that emerge
in the top 10 or 20 all get visited jointly by the Police and
the council and are told, "You either get your act together
or we are going to go after your licence". It is very interesting
that the premises that were in the top few dropped down after
such visits, so they clearly do something to change the way they
are operating. I think that has worked very well but that scheme
was devised by ourselves, it was a home grown initiative based
on a good working relationship with the Police.
Mr Jefferson: There is much the
same story in Bolton, again Crime and Disorder Partnership led.
We have a joint team with the Police that look after all those
affairs. The Town Centre Safe Initiative came out of that origin
really and there are very good working relationships with the
Police right to the most senior level. Also, we have information
sharing and our Town Centre Company helps to police in an informal
way people who are being a difficulty in our town centre. Trying
to make sure they are properly managed and controlled and knowing
that they are being looked at is very much from that origin.
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