The Committee will appoint a Chair and Vice-Chair for this particular meeting.

The Committee agreed to appoint Councillor Hendy as Chair and Councillor Tofan as Vice-Chair for this meeting.

Members will be asked to make any declarations of interest in respect of items on this agenda.

There were no declarations of interest.

To receive reports on business which, in the opinion of the Chair, should be brought forward for urgent consideration.

There were no items of Chair’s urgent business.

The Committee having:

a)     Used its discretion to allow the representations on behalf of the premises licence holder which were received late;

b)    Considered the Review of Premises Licence Report submitted by Will Tomkins, on behalf of the applicant, Environmental Health Services (EHS_ and the other written representations submitted to the Licensing Authority in advance of the meeting;

c)     Heard from Mr Tomkins, the applicant, as follow:

i) There continued to be a negative impact on the public nuisance licensing objective despite numerous attempts to work with the licence holder and bringing this application for a review was a last resort. There were conditions already on the licence which were strong enough to control noise from Club Inferno and it had shown that it could meet those conditions, but the licensing objective continued to be undermined;

ii) Mr Tomkins summarised his report, the complaints he had received from residents and what he had witnessed himself. This included reference to periods where the situation improved and then deteriorated again, the previous review application and minor amendments made to the licence conditions in response to the noise nuisance;

iii) Video footage was shown to the committee from 1 July 2024 at 03.29 hours and 04.59 hours;

iv) Mr Tomkins clarified that the noise limiter was a small box attached to the wall. It was a property of Club Inferno, not the Council. Music from the club went through it and it would cut off if it was too loud.  The level was set in agreement between the premises owner and Environmental Health, and in conjunction with residents. To adjust the level, the front had to be unscrewed;

v) The noise limiter level had been set twice by Mr Tomkins and his colleague. At the agreed level, the music could still be heard by residents but was at an acceptable level and did not hinder sleep. However, on both occasions, after a time the noise returned to a level so as to be a public nuisance. As a result Environmental Health did not know what else could be done with the noise limiter. There was nothing to suggest that re-setting it would help. The Environmental Health team is small and this was having an impact on them;

vi) There had been a breach of licence and this had a negative impact on the public nuisance licensing objective. Under existing conditions, there was total sound containment between 2300 hours and 0800 hours. Environmental Health encouraged businesses to entertain customers, but not at the disruption of others;

vii) There had been numerous attempts to work with the licence holders but the issues continued;

viii) The licence holder had shown that they could comply with the conditions;

ix) Local residents had not only complained but also recorded when the situation had improved.

d)    Considered the written and oral representations of the 3 local residents including:

i) Resident 1 – moved into her property in November 2022. When Club Inferno opened, the noise was ‘out  ...  view the full minutes text for item 65.