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.

There were no declarations of interest.

The procedure for hearings at Licensing Panels was noted.

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

·         the Licensing Officer;

·         the Traffic Manager;

·         Ward Councillors for Wildridings and Central (Councillors Skinner and Mrs Hamilton);

·         the Applicant,

together with reference to the Council’s own Policy for Determination of Street Trading Consents. At the conclusion of the proceedings all participants present confirmed that they had been given the opportunity to say all they wished to say.

After careful consideration of all the information presented, the Panel came to the decision to grant a Street Trading Consent to the applicant on Crowthorne Road North for B&B Plus. This decision was given with the proviso that the Licensing Officer, in consultation with the Traffic Manager, should agree a suitable location for the unit within the Crowthorne Road North area which was obscured as much as possible from the A3095 Bagshot Road. This was intended to prevent dangerous driving and illegal stopping on the clearway Bagshot Road by those who may see the van and miss the turning. The Panel were very cautious about going against the concerns of the Traffic Manager, as he raised apparent points about road safety that may arise from the granting of the Consent and the situation of the van within the sight line of the Bagshot Road.

If an appropriate site, obscured from drivers on the Bagshot Road, could not be agreed within 7 days of the date of the decision letter (30 November 2017), the consent would lapse and the matter would be returned to the same Licensing Panel for further consideration. It was suggested that Mrs Bunker’s van currently used at another site could be used as the model for determining the site allocation of the van, as during the panel hearing Mrs Bunker indicated it would be a similar van to the one she currently uses that will be used at this pitch.

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Reasons

The Panel found no evidence in the written and oral submissions from the Licensing Officer, Traffic Manager and Ward Councillors to suggest that the principle of street trading on Crowthorne Road North was contested. There was also no reason to suggest that the hours of operation should be altered from the proposed 16:00 to 23:00, seven days a week.

The Panel agreed that as Crowthorne Road North was accessible by a turning off Bagshot Road, it was possible that a street trader unit which was visible from the main road may lead to dangerous driving in order to access it. The panel has set out above what it wishes done to make the pitch safe. It was also noted that a street trading unit visible from the main road may encourage drivers to illegally stop on Bagshot Road, which was a clearly designated clearway. For this reason, the Panel were satisfied to allow street trading on Crowthorne Road North if the unit was not visible and attracting trade from the A3095 Bagshot Road. This could be by locating the unit further down  ...  view the full minutes text for item 12.