[Acrylic-bob]

Oddly enough, I was speaking to a committee member of one of our Working Men's clubs about this issue only the other day. They have applied for a one hour extension to the normal licence, they would have applied for two hours but HBC told them that one hour was all they would allow. For this they have had to fork out over £700 because the new licences will not be granted unless a new set of plans for the premises are included with the application.

The cost of annually renewing the licence used to be £50, now it is pegged to the rateable value of the premises and will cost the club over £300 the larger the premises the more money HBC will rake in.

There is supposed to be a set of regulations made available to licenced premises when new licenses are granted, however, true to form, HBC has said it "has got a little bit behind" and so the regulations covering what is or is not permitted will not be available when the new licenses come into effect.

So if the Local Authority will only permit a one hour extension to licenses, where does this idea of twenty-four hour drinking come from????