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‘Cough up £3m’ plea as licensing bill soars
Government urged to honour commitment on costs
THE hefty cost of introducing new licensing laws has led to the Town Hall issuing a stark demand to government: “You owe us £3 million.”
Camden Council has warned that taxpayers are having to foot the bill for a new system which allows pubs and clubs to apply for later opening hours.
With fixed serving hours scrapped and licensing decisions transferred from magistrates’ courts to local authorities, the cost of licensing administration and enforcement fees has rocketed.
In Camden, the cost has been higher because of the large number of nightspots which have applied for later hours.
Council chiefs say the dent left in the Town Hall coffers can only be met by council tax-payers.
Environment chief Tory councillor Mike Greene said: “The current fee levels are causing Camden huge problems.
“The government assured us that councils would be able to recover costs and it is now time they made good on that commitment.
“It is completely unacceptable that Camden’s taxpayers should be expected to pick up this huge bill.”
Without help from the government, the Lib Dem and Conservative partnership running the Town Hall will find it harder to meet its pledge to freeze council tax next year.
The government is conducting a review of how the system is financed but is under mounting pressure to make changes.
While Camden is proud of the way it has handled a deluge of applications for late hours and in many cases calmed fears about round-the-clock drinking, department chiefs maintain that licence fees were set too low when the laws changed last year and have questioned the timetable for bringing in the new rules.
Lib Dem council leader Councillor Keith Moffitt said: “We made sure systems were firmly in place to manage the new powers efficiently. However, because government released guidelines so late in the day, and due to tight and inflexible deadlines, it has all had an adverse effect on costs, causing them to increase significantly.”
The issue was a particular bugbear of ex-Labour leader of the council, Dame Jane Roberts, who regularly warned that Camden would struggle to pay for extra work without government action.
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