A CLAMPDOWN on businesses with outdoor seating areas in the city centre should be eased, the leader of Lichfield District Council has said.
Currently, a pavement licence is required, with the local authority offering this for free to those hospitality outlets in the city centre as part of efforts to create a “cafe culture”.
However, after officers visited local businesses, some were told that they would need to stop using the pavement outside their premises for tables and chairs due to them being in breach of legislation or not holding the licence.
Now the leader of Lichfield District Council has called on his colleagues to ensure efforts to enhance the city centre are not undone by over-zealous enforcement measures.
In an email sent by Cllr Doug Pullen to members of the regulatory and licensing committee – which has delegated powers to determine how officers deal with upholding regulation regarding outdoor seating – and seen by Lichfield Live he said:
“For several years, hospitality businesses in Lichfield have been putting tables and chairs outside of their premises, helping to create the cafe culture which sets Lichfield apart from many other nearby towns and cities.
“This should be welcomed, celebrated and further promoted, particularly as our high streets move away from retail and to an experience-driven offering.
“The Business and Planning Act 2020 aims to make obtaining a pavement licence even easier – unfortunately the Lichfield District Council implementation of this legislation appears to be having the opposite effect.
“While I believe we have been very helpful in terms of reducing the fee to £0 and making the application process as streamlined as possible, enforcement officers appear to be overly-focussed on a specific element of the legislation.”
The current guidance from the Department of Transport states that “in most circumstances, 1500mm clear space could be regarded as the minimum acceptable distance between the obstacle and the edge of the footway”.
But Cllr Pullen said the interpretation of this needed to be reconsidered in parts of Lichfield city centre.
“The phrase in the guidance ‘must have regard to’ is important here – it does not mean ‘slavishly follow’, but instead means that the guidance must be taken into account and carefully considered.
“Having done so, there would need to be a good reason to justify not complying with it. I believe that in Lichfield, particularly in Bird Street and Bore Street, there exists a good reason to adapt the guidance for local needs.
“The 1500mm rule features heavily in Lichfield District Council’s correspondence with businesses, apparently ignoring the fact that in Market Street and Bird Street the footway and carriageway are entirely level with no dropped kerb creating an obstacle, and in some cases indistinguishable from each other, as well as being pedestrianised with access only available to delivery drivers and residents for the most part of the day.
“The practical effect of this is that wheelchair users and pedestrians simply use the entire highway. On the very odd occasion that a vehicle enters the pedestrianised area, people simply wait until that vehicle passes before carrying on.”
Cllr Pullen’s email also cited a business on Bird Street which would need to replace barriers which have been in place for 11 years in order to shrink the area by a total of 49cm it they were to continue using the outdoor seating space.
He said:
“This means new barriers must be purchased for several hundreds of pounds. If it is not, the business face having their tables and chairs collected by the council and stored at the cost of the business.
“This is just one example of many that I have heard from across the city.
“I accept that there is some element of interpretation in these rules, and that while I hold very strong views about this, it may not be shared across the council. Our officers are no doubt undertaking their work in the diligent manner which we would expect them to.
“I am not asking you [committee members] to follow and specific direction from me, but I do believe that there should be greater political oversight of this policy and approach to enforcement.
“While the regulatory and licensing committee have delegated the authority to determine in what manner to enforce this policy to officers, our constitution is very clear that the power is held concurrently by the committee, and therefore you have the ability to make an alternative determination of how these policies should be enforced as well as oversight of the policy.”
Cllr Pullen’s request for the committee to reconsider the “strict interpretation” of the 1500mm rule and give guidance to officers about “the manner” in which enforcement is expected to be discussed at a meeting in the coming weeks.
