Move to increase checks of busy Northampton venues following club tragedy
TALKS are underway inside The Guildhall to “strengthen” the licensing department at Northampton Borough Council in light of the Lava & ignite tragedy.
The discussions started after the opposition Labour group tabled a motion, to be discussed at a full council meeting tonight, calling for the ruling Tory group to invest in the department after “significant issues have arisen regarding taxi and private hire, the licensing of clubs and pubs and the purchase of alcohol”.
Talks are believed to be underway about proposals for more enforcement officers to be appointed at the council.
Labour councillors also want officials to inspect premises with high numbers of customers every 12 months. The group also called for the council’s licensing procedures to be made more “robust” and for new applications for pub, club or entertainment licences to have to be accompanied by a drawing or scale plan depicting the layout of the building and highlighting emergency exits.
They are also calling for organisations or promoters that take over a licensed pub or club to be forced to inform licensing officers of any changes.
The calls come after the two people died during a crush at the former Lava & Ignite nightclub in St Peter’s Way last year, as well as the Fat Cat fire in Bridge Street and a recent row over private hire cars.
Councillor Terry Wire (Labour, St James) said: “What we are asking the Conservative administration to do is to reverse the cuts to the licensing department and employ more licensing officers.
“The Labour group thinks the planning committee should not approve applications without seeing a proper plan of the premises. In higher risk premises we believe they should be inspected every 12 months.
“We want to review the door staff programme and door staff training.”
Councillor Wire, a member of the licensing committee and former licensing committee chairman, added: “We will be submitting a document which will cover a number of points some being greater scrutiny of applications, give councillors more information on the outlay of the building by plan or line drawing, applications not just approved on a verbal report.”
The motion is to be discussed at a full council meeting tonight.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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Comments
There are 4 comments to this article
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lady muck
Tuesday, January 17, 2012 at 08:31 AMAs we now know, following the Italian cruise ship sinking, when people panic, all plans are out of the window. I suspect this is what happened at Lava and the truth (which it is in nobody's interest to admit), is that for true safety, most of our clubs would have to be totally re-built and have such restrictions on numbers that they would be unprofitable.
johnjs
Monday, January 16, 2012 at 03:33 PMThis was all done years ago as well as inspections for fire electrics etc so nothin new hear apart from the system became self policing yeah right like owners are really going to comply with all the rules? seldom do they and the staff are not trained properly sometime either. One company I know had a fire drill dated 2008!
Joe Joyce
Monday, January 16, 2012 at 03:17 PMAny extra staff employed will probably be made redundant in the next round of cutbacks!
Pacifist
Monday, January 16, 2012 at 08:19 AMDo the Councillors know that they cant go outside the law as set by central Government?
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