My Lords, I want to flag three areas where the Government should look further at these regulations than merely extending them to 2022.
The first is the timeframe placed on local authorities to process, publicise and determine licences: a mere 10 working days. This has been incredibly onerous on council resources and should be extended to between 15 and 25 working days. With businesses shortly to reopen without restrictions, it is only fair to offer more time to councils and residents.
The second aspect is the cost of a licence, which has been set at a maximum of £100. I gather that most councils have charged this in full. For uncontested licences, it may cover their administrative costs, but it does not if an application is contested and senior officers and licensing teams need to be involved. Kensington and Chelsea Council told me that it would usually charge £512 for a table and chairs licence under the previous regime, which was calculated based on cost recovery. While the process has been streamlined under these regulations, it has not cut councils’ costs by 80%. Effectively, councils are struggling with this loss of income. In some cases, there is a double loss of income where a licence is granted for tables and chairs in parking bays, as there is an additional loss of parking revenue. If this regime is to be extended until September 2022, councils would welcome the discretion to set higher application fees where appropriate. In addition, local authorities would often recover their monitoring costs to ensure compliance with licences, often around £300 a year per premises. The regulations make no provision for this, yet monitoring is still needed.
My third comment may be too radical for some, but it has been suggested to me that the Government might be bolder and look at a British Summer Time pavement licensing scheme to operate annually but
not in the winter, or trial these regulations on a more permanent basis in the central activities zone boroughs of, say, Westminster, Camden and Kensington and Chelsea.
The new regulations are much less cumbersome than the three regimes they replace, but the work being done by Westminster City Council to make pavement licensing cost-neutral needs to be taken on board, and a longer timeframe for processing, consulting and determining pavement licences is key to helping residents feel involved.
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