Licensing Divisions

The Board must, in terms of section 7 of the Act, publish in this policy a statement on the extent to which it considers there to be overprovision of licensed premises or overprovision of licensed premises of a particular description in any locality within the Board’s area. In making its assessment the Board consulted with the statutory consultees and other interested parties. The Board had regard to the statutory guidance published under section 142 of the Licensing (Scotland) Act 2005. The Board considered the terms of its previous policy, its impact, and whether there was evidence of changes having occurred since the previous policy was agreed. The Board carefully considered all responses received and in particular found that information provided by Police Scotland, NHS Lanarkshire, South Lanarkshire Council, and Alcohol Focus was of assistance. The Board also had regard to the responses received to its overprovision survey. 

The Board considered that their assessment must be based on evidence of a causal link between alcohol related harm in a locality, and the availability of alcohol in that locality, such that it could be concluded that an increase in the number of licences would be likely to cause an increase in harm. 

The Board first used the information provided to determine localities within its area and determined that for the purpose of the overprovision assessment the localities identified in its previous policy continued to be appropriate, namely: 

1. There should be a separate locality defined for the area known as ‘the Village’. The locality is bounded on one side by Old Coach Road and the other side includes Maxwell Drive, Kirkton Park, St Brydes Street, Pankhurst Place and the area around the Village Theatre which for clarification includes the industrial units. It is noted that the boundary of the area designated as the locality known as ‘the Village’ may be different from the boundaries of the conservation area.
2. There should be a standalone locality known as “the Town Centre”. This locality is shown on the plan annexed to this policy. 
3. The other localities will form the same wards designated for the Local Government elections. For clarification each ‘ward’ is defined as a locality for the purpose of overprovision, namely as follows: -

Where either the locality described above as ‘the Village’ or ‘the Town Centre’ formed part of the ward then the remaining part of the ward is designated a separate locality for the purposes of overprovision.

The Board noted that the majority of respondents to the overprovision survey had agreed with the Board’s approach to identifying localities and were of the view that there was no overprovision of licensed premises. In considering whether in these localities there existed overprovision of licensed premises, or of licensed premises of a particular description, the Board considered carefully the statistical information provided in relation to crime and disorder, health, and inequality in its area. It found that there was insufficient evidence at this time of a conclusive link at locality level between alcohol related harm and numbers and capacities of premises. The Board noted the comments which had been made in responses that the impact of such factors as the COVID-19 pandemic and national initiatives such as Minimum Unit Pricing on patterns of consumption of alcohol had still to be fully evaluated. The Board considered that the increase in online sales and deliveries called into question the effectiveness of locality-based controls. The Board considered that further data may become available which would enable the issue to be reviewed. The Board fully recognised the need to reduce alcohol related harm, in particular in relation to health, and welcomed the efforts which agencies are making to address this. On the available evidence however, the Board concluded that there was not a dependable causal link established at this time between the number and capacity of licensed premises in the specified localities in the Board’s area and alcohol related harm in those localities.