Progress on city centre drinking

I was at a licensing committee meeting earlier this week, and we were finally able to vote on a "Cumulative Impact" policy. Something that we could only do with sufficient evidence from the police.

Since the changes to alcohol licensing a few years ago, we've seen a notable change to the character of many towns and cities. The hope was that the new licensing laws would allow for a more managed situation as pubs closed, and it did work that way for a while. However, the evidence shown to us by the police, demonstrates that Cambridge, like towns like Brighton, has had an increasing problem with violence and drink-related anti-social behaviour, especially on Friday and Saturday nights.

Part of the problem, I would say is that the licensing laws changed to "liberalise" the situation, something that I as a "Liberal" take as being a slur on the Liberal tradition. It did not liberalise licensing, it created a "presumption to grant" a license for any application, irrespective of local residents and councillors feelings. It gave us no democratic involvement, instead, chaining local councillors to implement the policy dictated by central government.

This policy was quite simple: "keep Britain drinking" or even "get Britain binge-drinking".

It certainly wasn't Liberal. Liberalism balances the freedoms of a person (e.g. to have a drink) with the rights of others to have a peaceful night and to use their town centre safely.


At least now, Cambridge should soon have a much stronger position. For license applications for the city centre and for the Cambridge Leisure Park (near the station), we have recommended that the city council apply a cumulative impact policy, which will require that license applications show that they will not be adding to existing problems.

This should allow a restaurant to get a license, but will require that large "mega-pubs" can be turned down.

The Full Council meeting where we expect this decision to be ratified will be at the Guildhall on the 6th December.