A responsible authority, or anyone who lives in or has a business in the vicinity of a premises with a premises licence or club premises certificate, may make an application to the Borough Council for review of a premises licence or club premises certificate, if they are concerned that the premises are not being properly operated and have evidence to support their point of view. Anyone considering applying for a review should seek advice at the earliest opportunity.
What is a review?
A review is an application to the Borough Council to consider whether a particular premises are being conducted in accordance with their licence and the terms of the Licensing Act 2003, and to consider taking appropriate action.
A review should not be the first stage in taking action to deal with concerns about licensed premises. Anyone with concerns about such premises should consider whether these could be dealt with by other means, for example:
Hampshire Constabulary
Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service
Hampshire County Council Trading Standards Service
Hampshire County Council Child Protection
Health and Safety Executive (where they have responsibility for health & safety at work enforcement at the premises)
Maritime and Coastguard Agency (where the premises comprise a vessel)
Eastleigh Borough Council Services
Environmental Health
Planning (Development Control Unit)
Contact details for each of the responsible authorities are available via the link to the right of this page.
Who are interested parties?
An interested party is:
Review applications must clearly relate to the premises for which the review application is being made. For example, representations on the basis of general noise and disturbance, without evidence of a causal link to specific premises, are unlikely to be persuasive.
What does the applicant for review need to do?
The applicant for review must complete the prescribed form in full (see links below) and serve the original on the Borough Council, with copies to each of the responsible authorities (see link below) and on the holder of the premises licence or club secretary.
Will every review application be considered?
If the review application is otherwise valid, the Borough Council is obliged to consider whether the review is frivolous, vexatious or repetitious.
Frivolous:
As a general rule, frivolous representations are likely to lack seriousness. This does not mean that a trivial complaint would always be considered frivolous, but it must be serious and be of some substance; it must also relate to one or more of the licensing objectives.
Vexatious:
Vexatious representations may, for example, arise because of disputes between rival businesses.
Repetitious:
A review application will be repetitious if it is identical or substantially similar to a ground of a previous review or representation on an application for the same premises, and a reasonable interval has not elapsed since the previous consideration be the Borough Council. Statutory guidance suggests that 12 months may be a "reasonable interval" in most circumstances.
If a review application is declared frivolous, vexatious or repetitious, the application will be rejected and the applicant will be notified of the reasons for the decision. The legislation does not provide any right of appeal against such a decision, other than by way of application for judicial review to the High Court.
What happens if the review application is valid?
The Borough Council will arrange for the display of a notice of the application for review on or adjacent to the premises, at the Civic Offices and on eastleigh.gov.uk for a period of 28 days (7 days if the review follows a closure by the Police), during which any responsible authority or interested party may make a representation about the application.
Are there any current applications for review?
Please follow the link on the right to the public registers page.
Can representations be made to every application?
Yes, provided those making representations are either responsible authorities or interested parties. Representations that are irrelevant, frivolous or vexatious must be disregarded, so, on receipt, the Licensing Team will check that the representations can be considered. In border line cases the representations will be placed before the Licensing Panel, who may choose not to consider them.
Petitions
Petitions in relation to review applications are unlikely to be acceptable unless every page clearly shows the reasons for the petition and each petitioner gives their name, address and signature. In any case, petitions are unlikely to carry as much weight with the Licensing Panel as letters from individuals.
Who should representations be sent to?
Representations, which must be in writing and include your name and full address, should be sent to:
The Licensing Team
Eastleigh Borough Council
PO Box 1344
Southampton
SO15 1WQ
The Licensing Team must receive representations no later than the last date specified in the notice of application, as the Act does not allow the Borough Council to consider late representations.
What happens when representations are relevant?
A copy of the representations will be sent to the applicant and arrangements will be made for the Council's Licensing Panel to hear the application for review and the representations made to it. Hearings will take place in public, although the Panel may, in certain instances, decide that it is in the best interest of the public to hold hearings in private.
The details of all representations (including the interested parties' names and addresses) will be included in a report that the Licensing Team will prepare for the hearing. These reports are public documents and the Borough Council is required to publish them.
Interested parties will be invited to attend the hearing, as will the applicant and any responsible authorities that have made representations. Any party may be assisted or represented by any person at the hearing regardless of whether that person is legally qualified.
The Licensing Team will notify everyone of the date and time of the hearing and provide details of the procedure to be followed at the hearing.
At the hearing, the legislation allows the Licensing Panel to take one or more of the following steps:
The Southampton Magistrates' Court is at 100 the Avenue, Southampton, SO17 1EY - 'phone 023 8038 4200
What further information is available?
Further guidance on reviews is also available from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport via the link on the right of this page.
Contact information
Email: liquor.licence@eastleigh.gov.uk
Telephone: 023 8083 4209
Fax: 023 8083 4061
Postal address:
Licensing Team
Eastleigh Borough Council
PO Box 1344
Southampton
SO15 1WQ
Document Exchange: DX 115710 Southampton 17
Personal callers:
Licensing Team
Southbrook Rise
4-8 Millbrook Road East
Southampton
SO15 1YG
Opening hours:
Members of the licensing team will normally be available at Southbrook Rise to assist personal callers on weekdays between 09:00 and 12:00 and between 14:00 and 16:00. We may be available at other times by prior appointment.
Please note that the addresses and numbers given above should only be used for communication with the licensing team.
