Following the public session at the Parish Council Meeting on 18 Mar 25 – that discussed the ‘Over The Hill’ Event planned for 23-25 May 25 on the J M Stratton Estate – a number of parishioners have contacted the Parish Council and the Wiltshire Council Licensing Officer regarding the event. The information below sets out the ‘Licensing’ position.
Regarding the process:
- A Temporary Event Notice (TEN) is required if it is intended to carry out a ‘licensable activity’ on unlicensed premises in England or Wales.
- Licensable activity includes: 1 – selling alcohol. 2 – serving alcohol to members of a private club. 3 – providing entertainment, such as music, dancing or indoor sporting events. 4 – serving hot food or drink between 11pm and 5am.
- Restrictions of a TEN are that: The event must: 1 – have fewer than 500 people at all times – including staff running the event. 2 – last no more than 168 hours (7 days). 3. The applicant must be at least 18 to apply for a TEN.
- An applicant needs a TEN for each event you hold on the same premises.
- Non-License Holders can obtain up to 5 TENs a year. If they have a personal licence to sell alcohol, they can be granted up to 50 TENs a year. A single premises can have up to 15 TENs applied for in one year, as long as the total length of the events is not more than 21 days. If separate but consecutive events are being arranged there must be at least a 24 hour gap between them.
- TENs are required to be submitted to the police and environmental health at least 10 working days before the event; this can be done directly or via the Wiltshire Council. A ‘late TEN can be submitted 5 working days before the event.
- The Council cannot refuse a TEN unless the police or environmental health object to it. They can only object if they think your event could: 1 – lead to crime and disorder. 2 – cause a public nuisance. 3 – be a threat to public safety. 4 – put children at risk of harm.
- They must respond within 3 working days of receiving the application.
Note that neither the Unitary Councillor, Parish Council nor the public are consultees for a TEN. There was (is) no legal requirement/basis for one – and any opinion offered would be irrelevant as it would not be admissible
In this particular case:
- As a result of discussions between the Parish Council and a Wiltshire Council Licensing Officer it was established that an event being planned in the parish at an unknown location appeared to be being held on the JM Stratton estate – that it was not yet supported by any formal application – but was being advertised.
- The Licensing Officer contacted the landowner on 10 Mar; a discussion resulted in the generation and submission of a TEN.
- The TEN was approved within the statutory period on 14 Mar. There was no consultation other than with the statutory authorities.
- Notwithstanding that the Parish Council opinion is inadmissible – nevertheless the Parish Council supported by Cllr Wayman stated during the consideration of the TEN that “At the moment we(the PC) do not/will not support it (the event) without further integrated engagement to develop community engagement and a plan on this. Even then – we may not support it. If they (the organisers) don’t agree to brief the community – the PC is likely to call a public meeting to gather views and concerns.”
- The public session of the Parish Council Meeting in 18 Mar provided an opportunity to invite the organisers to brief their event and take questions/comment. The organisers were invited by the Parish Council – and agreed to attend.
- A full and proper legal process has been conducted for authorizing the event.
At the public meeting on 18 Mar, the organisers acknowledged that there hadn’t been any local liaison/communications – and that they now had to clarify and number of issues and provide the local community with a ‘Fact Sheet’.
The Parish Council will capture the key points from the public meeting – whichh will be published – as will rolling updates as and when we have further information/comment to disseminate.
See below a response to from the Wiltshire Council Licensing Officer – in response to a specific enquiry about the event sent to him – but which he is happy is shared more widely – given it would answer collectively a number of similar queries.
Thank you for your query.
Unfortunately, I will not be sharing detailed information with you or devoting further significant officer time to this event. I say this not to be dismissive or belittle local concerns, I am well aware of them.
However, there is process prescribed in law that deals with the licensing of the event, noise and event management. They are consistently applied and exceptions are not made.
I will deal with licensing first. The event is licensed under a Temporary Event Notice – TEN. You will be able to easily find out more about this online via .gov sources. A TEN is a light touch licensing regimen for smaller events which allows an applicant to apply to the Licensing Authority with as little as week notice via notification. In this case, I became aware sooner and we had an application this month. There is no public consultation in this process and the only parties we are required to consult with are Wiltshire Police and our own Noise Team where an EHO may review the application. Both parties are limited on what basis they may make representations to a TEN. Police – Crime & Disorder and EHO Public Nuisance (noise). No rep was received from Police and the EHO intervened to formulate a Noise Management Plan with the event organiser. The NMP is intended to deal with the noise concerns you describe. It is not a public document being the property of the event organiser – I will not be sharing it. There is no documented noise history related to this event and the location applied for. That being the case the LA acknowledged the TEN and licensed the event.
I accept your concerns regarding a multitude of other areas from traffic volume to wildlife. However, none are relevant under the process. The Licensing Act 2003 is primary legislation applied nationally, it has scope limited to the Licensing Objectives. The Licensing Authority have no discretion in law to add other factors or alter the process – to do so would be unlawful. The Event Organiser elected to attend a recent public meeting organised by the Parish Council where some of the other matters were discussed. They were under no obligation to do so and those matters have no place in the licensing process. The event is licensed by a TEN, there is no further process or discussion to be had on this point. However, should this event prove to be problematic against the Licensing Objectives, it may be taken into account by us in future applications in certain circumstances.
Noise is also dealt with separately under Statutory Nuisance legislation. I do not intend to discuss this in detail – you may conduct your own research. However, the NMP is intended to prevent this and WC may investigate and enforce in the event of the organiser not managing that noise effectively. Details here: Noise nuisance – Wiltshire Council The EHO and I are familiar with working closely together on such matters. We may check the event whilst it is ongoing, subject to our wider demands at the time. Where an Event Organiser has hosted a problematic event or does not engage effectively with us, this too may be a consideration in future licensing decisions, be that further TENs or Premises Licence applications.
Finally, event management is the responsibility of the event organiser. This is a small scale event and well below threshold for requiring a full Premises Licence or formal Event Safety Advisory Group process, which may be applied to larger events with greater risk. Again, you can find out more about the ESAG process and event management online from a number of authoritative sources. Event Management Plans and associated documents are again property of the organiser and are not public documents that I will be sharing.
I have answered a number of similar queries already, the matter has been discussed in public forum informally via the Parish Council. It is important that the Licensing Authority’s time is applied proportionately based upon event size, risk and the scale of the licensing process. The TEN process is complete – the event is licensed, there is no further discussion to be had on this point. I have described our stance in terms of light touch attention and how we may deal with any noise complaints etc. There are already established protocols between partner agencies in the event of an adverse incident, I do not propose to describe them in detail – but they are well tested.
Finally, I will not be commenting upon whether the event is ‘acceptable’. That is inappropriate. The LA has a duty to process all applications lawfully – that has been completed. A Licensing Officer may not make any comment upon the relative merits of an application, our job is apply the legal process properly. In this case, I have promptly followed up information on being made aware of the event, processed the application, had an EHO intervene regards an NMP and encouraged the Event Organiser to engage with residents. I have also had informal discussions with the unitary and parish councillor. I regret to inform you, I will not be offering further narrative or keeping you up to date.
The position is simply, the event will likely go ahead unless the organiser decides not to or there is some other demonstrable serious problem (under the Licensing Objectives) that requires a review. None of the wider concerns you mention are relevant under this process and cannot be considered. If it assists you to disseminate this email and position more widely to other local people – please do so. I know the Parish Council have been seeking to do so.
Of course, it remains open to you to discuss the matter informally as you wish, but there is no legal avenue open to the public to remove or alter the licensed TEN status of the event.