Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from the following Councillors Tim Anderson, David Goodwin, Maddy Redpath, Will Salmon, James Steel and Catherine Young.

In accordance with the local Code of Conduct, a councillor is required to disclose at the meeting any disclosable pecuniary interest (DPI) that they may have in respect of any matter for consideration on this agenda.  Any councillor with a DPI must notparticipate in any discussion or vote regarding that matter and they must also withdraw from the meeting immediately before consideration of the matter.

If that DPI has not been registered, the councillor must notify the Monitoring Officer of the details of the DPI within 28 days of the date of the meeting.

Councillors are further invited to disclose any non-pecuniary interest which may be relevant to any matter on this agenda, in the interests of transparency, and to confirm that it will not affect their objectivity in relation to that matter.

Councillor Keith Witham declared a non-disclosable pecuniary interest in item 5.2 ‘Fit and Proper Testing for Managers of Licenced Caravan Sites’ owing to the fact that he was a resident on one of the borough’s licenced caravan sites which was covered by the relevant legislation.

To confirm the minutes of the meeting of the Licensing Committee held on 29 September 2021.

The minutes of the Licensing Committee held on 29 September 2021 were approved and signed by the Chairman.

To receive any announcements from the Chairman of the Committee.

The Chairman had no announcements to make.

The Committee received a report from Chris Woodhatch, Licensing Food and Safety Lead.  The Committee noted that the current statement was due to expire and an updated draft was approved for public consultation by the Licensing Committee on 26 May 2021.  The consultation was held between 5 July – 1 October 2021 and no material comments were made. 

The Committee having considered the report;

RESOLVED to recommend that Full Council approved the draft Gambling Act 2005 Statement of Principles 2022-25 at its meeting on 7 December 2021.

The Committee received a report from Sean Grady, Private Sector Housing and Pollution Lead.  The Committee noted that the new legislation required relevant and responsible persons of caravan sites and those sites that required a licence, to operate lawfully to be fit and proper.   The mobile homes requirement was for a manager to be a fit and proper person and those regulations 2020, required those managing or in control of relevant protected sites to make an application for inclusion on the fit and proper register.   The regulations also required the Council to assess fit and proper applications, to publish and maintain a public register and publish a fees policy which was found in Appendix 1.  This justified the costs charged for fit and proper applications and provided the overall policy to process the applications and make decisions upon them.  Within Schedule 1, the fit and proper fee calculation could be observed along with the variation to the Annual Caravan Site licensing fees.  The Register was completed and published on the Council's website and already listed the sites that needed applications.  The Council had created a procedure to assess applications and recorded them on its database, the policy and procedure was based upon the policy as found in appendix 1 and would enable a consistent approach to application assessments and decisions, working in line with the government guidance, subject-specific training, access to specialist forums, legislation, consultation with local authorities, its own policy and subject-specific study groups which would enable the Council to approach those assessments in a balanced manner against other authorities across England and Surrey. 

Fit and proper regulations required a fee to be made with the application and was mandatory.  The fit and proper regulations give the Council choice to charge an additional fee in relation to fit and proper applications as the annual fee was to only be charged in response to additional enforcement time spent on sites that were not complying with for example conditions imposed on their application.  The fit and proper annual fee would not be charged to sites until a full review of the fees in twelve months-time and obviously a better understanding of the situation at that time in terms of enforcement and compliance.  Those sites would generally only be charged that fee in accordance with the conditions on their licence.  Schedule 1 table 1 referred to the general site licence fee that was paid yearly by all sites with a caravan licence and this fee was not in relation to fit and proper managers specifically and required revision to account for the frequency of visits.

The Committee noted comments made that these Fit and Proper Testing for Managers of Licenced Caravan sites had been long awaited since 2013 and followed a long series of changes in legislation going back to 1983.  The question was raised that if there was an application from a person to be a Fit and Proper Manager of a licenced caravan site, that person may have a completely  ...  view the full minutes text for item L6

The Committee noted its work programme.