NEW LICENSING LAW HITS CENTRE FOR THE DISABLED WITH MASSIVE BILL

9.06.23pm UTC (GMT +0000) Tue 27th Sep 2005

Eastleigh MP Chris Huhne says that the new licensing law is one of the most badly drafted pieces of legislation for years as it catches many small community bars that should never face high licensing costs.

Mr Huhne highlighted the example in Eastleigh of the John Darling Mall, a centre for the disabled, that has a volunteer-run bar called 'The Penny Farthing' solely for the use of residents and their visitors.

"This bar is a facility for severely disabled people to meet and talk, and it is staffed by church members from nearby St Peter's. It is used by just 15 people a night, and takes in total about £30 a week. Yet its licensing costs are rising from £10 a year under the old law to £672 a year under the new one" said Mr Huhne who visited the bar this week.

"That is a 6,720% increase for absolutely no reason.

Rev Peter Gilks of St Peter's Church, who helps organise his congregation to support the bar, said: "It is a really valuable resource for the community and it helps greatly with their social life. Surely no-one intended the law to have this effect".

The manager at the John Darling Mall is intending to raise the money to pay the licensing costs somehow, perhaps through local fund-raising efforts.

Mr Huhne said that the case showed how bad law could have terrible unexpected consequences, and that he had had a succession of constituents who had complained in recent advice surgeries about its impact. "Another case of costs gone mad is the licensing of the parish hall in Bursledon: no-one seems to have thought about the little bars mainly run by volunteers on a shoestring".

"From Hamble in the south to Allbrook in the north, I have yet to meet a single constituent who has a kind word to say about this legislation, which is sloppy, incoherent, ill thought through and a public scandal. That the Government minister introduced it as a simplification of the old regime is merely a bad joke."

"The sooner the Government introduces amendments to allow a light touch licensing of small premises, the better" said Mr Huhne.

Ends