Sunday, 13 January 2013

Community consultation soon over Local Alcohol Policy



With Parliament passing the Alcohol Reform Bill recently, councils are being asked to develop their own Local Alcohol Policies. The CCC currently has this old policy (click here) but is going to canvass community groups like the St James Ave Residents Association for their opinions and suggestions.

A Local Alcohol Policy enables the community to have much more say in where and how licensed premises operate than at present. As you know from the recent battle with Club 22, making the old system work took a lot of effort! The Council's Local Alcohol Policy allows the CCC to regulate opening hours for licensed premises, control the location of licensed premises (the focus of our recent efforts) and make one-way door restrictions (i.e. no-one comes enters the bar after a certain time).

The CCC's Strategic Policy Unit Manager, Alan Bywater, is organising discussion forums at the Hereford Street Civic Offices on Friday 1st February 10.00-12.30 and Tuesday 5th February 1.00-3.30 to start this process, and our association will be invited. So put on your thinking caps and consider what you would like included in the CCC policy and email your thoughts to Margaret. 

(Some useful links on this subject are collated on the CCC LAP submission page of this blog)