Agenda and minutes

            Apologies for inability to attend were reported on behalf of Alderman Copeland and Councillors Hutchinson and McReynolds.

            The minutes of the meeting of 20th February were taken as read and signed as correct.  It was reported that those minutes had been adopted by the Council at its meeting on 4th March, subject to the omission of those matters in respect of which the Council had delegated its powers to the Committee.

            No declarations of interest were reported.

            The Committee noted a list of licences and permits which had been issued under the Council’s Scheme of Delegation.

            The Committee was reminded that, at its meeting on 19th September 2018, it agreed to vary the Designating Resolution to allow for the sale of bus tour tickets on condition that any resulting applications to sell bus tour tickets would be considered by the Committee and, if approved, be granted on a one-year trial basis.

The Building Control Manager informed the Members that Under Section 11 of the Street Trading Act (NI) 2001, the Council may at any time vary the Conditions specified in a Street Trading Licence where an application is made under Section 5 by the Licence holder.

            He informed the Committee that Mr. J. Rea had applied to vary his Street Trading Licence for the site in Castle Place opposite Donegall Arcade to include the sale of bus tour tickets.

            The Building Control Manager reported that Mr. Rea was licenced to trade Monday to Saturday from 8am to 9pm and on Sunday from 10am to 6pm to sell flowers, plants, arts and crafts, floral accessories, fruit and vegetables.  He pointed out that Mr. Rea was a long standing trader and had two other Street Trading Licenses both in Castle Lane.

            After discussion, the Committee agreed to grant and approve the variation to the Street Trading Licence on a one-year trial basis.

The Committee considered the following report:

“1.0     Purpose of Report or Summary of main Issues

            Committee will recall that, at your meeting of 20 November 2018, you considered a report on road closures for special events and the cost to administer the scheme. You agreed that Officers would submit proposals for revised fees for special events to a future meeting.

2.0       Recommendations

            Members are asked to consider the fee for each of the 6 application types and decide, for each of those types, whether:

1.  To continue to charge the current fee; or

2.  Set a revised fee for that application type.

            As these decisions are not a delegated function of the Licensing Committee any decision will be subject to ratification by Council.

3.0       Main report

            Key Issues

            Committee will recall that, at your meeting in April 2018, you agreed the fees, classification of events and the newspapers that the Statutory Notice is published in for road closures.

            It was agreed that city centre applications are advertised in either the Belfast Telegraph, Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland edition), Irish News or Newsletter (Ulster edition) on a rotational basis. Where a special event extends beyond the city centre to various areas of the city, such as the Belfast Marathon, then the Notice is also placed in one of the four main newspapers.

            When the event is outside the city centre, the notice is advertised in a local newspaper circulating in that area. This has proven to be problematic, in that some local newspapers are only published on a fortnightly basis and often applications for local events are received at short notice meaning that the advert has had to be placed in a main newspaper, thus resulting in additional expenditure.

            Where it has been possible applications for multiple road closures have been combined into one notice to help reduce advertising costs.

            The Council has received 37 applications since April 2018 to close or restrict roads. Below is a summary of the events as per the agreed classification.

•    Small event: 2

•    Large event (City centre): 14

•    Large event (Outside City centre): 9

•    Commercial runs including triathlons: 6

•    Commercial runs, reduced fee (charity): 1

•    Club runs: 5

The following table shows an overview of the total income and expenditure related to processing 37 Road Closure Orders to date.

Review of fees

Members are advised that not all 37 applications have been fully completed and, since April 2018, 29 Orders for 42 events have been made.

To review the fees those 29 applications where the Council has made an Order have been used in the expenditure calculations. For each of these we have recorded officer time spent on each application and the cost of the public Notice (which will vary for each application) to provide the cost of processing the different types of application as set out below.