Agenda and minutes

Members are asked to declare any disclosable pecuniary or affected interests in respect of any matter to be considered at this meeting.

Any Member with a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest in a matter should withdraw from the meeting when the matter is under consideration and should notify the Democratic Services Officer in attendance that they are withdrawing as they have such an interest. If the Disclosable Pecuniary Interest is not entered on the register of Members interests the Monitoring Officer must be notified of the interest within 28 days.

Any Member with an affected Interest in a matter must disclose the interest to the meeting and must not participate in discussion of the matter or vote on the matter unless granted a dispensation by the Monitoring officer or by the Governance and Audit Committee.  There is no requirement to withdraw from the meeting when the interest is only an affected interest, but the Monitoring Officer should be notified of the interest, if not previously notified of it, within 28 days of the meeting.

In the interests of openness, the chairman declared that all members of the Council had been offered a discount at Fenwick’s opening event.

There were no other declarations of interest.

All parties noted the procedure for hearings at Licensing Panels.

The Panel carefully considered all the information presented, both written and oral, from:

• the Licensing Officer who outlined the issues;
• the Applicant,
• the Environmental Health Officer;

together with reference to the appropriate Licensing objectives, the Council’s own Statement of Licensing Policy and the Home Office’s April 2017 revised guidance issued under section 182 of the Licensing Act 2003. At the conclusion of the proceedings all participants present confirmed that they had been given the opportunity to say all they wished to say.

The Panel noted that there had been no representations made by the Police, or any of the other Responsible Authorities. The Panel bore in mind the promotion of the four licensing objectives under the Licensing Act 2003, the relevant objective in this case being the prevention of public nuisance, with particular concern to the potential for noise nuisance.

The Panel decided that granting the licence would not have an adverse impact on the promotion of the four licensing objectives, and agreed to grant the Licence, with additional conditions relating to the outdoor terrace. The Panel agreed that the outdoor roof terrace should only be available to customers until 23:00, Monday to Sunday, and that noise and vibration resulting from outdoor dining should be monitored by the applicant.

Reasons

The Panel took no issue with the granting of the alcohol licence for the premises, and discussed only the conditions to mediate against noise nuisance arising from the rooftop terrace of the restaurant.

The Panel found no evidence to suggest that the applicant’s proposal of terrace opening time until 23:00 Monday to Sunday (as opposed to it closing any earlier on those days as proposed by Environmental Health) would result in noise nuisance, and noted that, with a new night time economy due to open in the town, there was likely to be more ambient noise in the evening in Bracknell town centre to a certain degree in any event. Whilst the Panel recognised concerns from Environmental Health regarding a likely change from the historic lower ambient noise during the evening in Bracknell as a result of the opening of the new town centre on the 7^th September 2017, they did not consider that in itself would be reason to refuse the licence application.

In reaching its decision, the Panel was mindful to strike a balance between the legitimate business interests of the applicant retailer in wishing to operate licensable activity in a town centre environment, with the interest and rights of inhabitants of nearby residential premises not to have to endure noise nuisance caused by such activity.

The Panel took into consideration the proposed layout of the terrace, and noted that the restaurant was unlikely to attract large, rowdy groups of people to what appeared to be an upmarket eatery with seated table service only.

The Panel also took into account the applicant’s stated intention to have a glass balustrade surrounding the terrace restaurant, with planters positioned on the terrace and a canvas canopy hung above customer’s heads,  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.