Yes, another meeting in a pub

Again a day dominated by licensing.

I heard in the morning that the Council have given planning permission to convert the former night club at the Park Royale leisure complex into a health and fitness centre. This should be good news – the former night club had a history of noise and other nuisance to those around it. I just hope that the health and fitness centre is a better neighbour than Virgin (see earlier posts), but then that wouldn’t be difficult.

I was invited in the afternoon to attend and speak at the Acton Pubwatch meeting at the Kings Arms, together with police officers from East Acton and Acton Central. This is part of a national scheme that encourages pub and club landlords to work together to solve common problems. The Acton Pubwatch has been recently reinvigorated by Colin Daniels – the energetic landlord of the Kings Arms in East Acton ward – and many of the pubs in Acton were represented. Colin has an impressive range of five real ales from Fullers on sale, and I had my first (tasty) pints of the year of their seasonal ale ‘Mr Harry’s’.

The statue in the back bar of the Kings Arms

It was encouraging to hear the landlords praise the work that the police and the Council have done to make Acton Park and Churchfield Road (East and west) safer. A dispersal zone has been introduced in Acton Park, and the police have stepped up their work in Churchfield Road – one landlord said “it’s been fantastic – Churchfield Road has been quieter”. However, most of the discussion at the meeting will have to remain confidential because it involved sharing intelligence on problem customers and incidents. There was a general welcome to the announcement that Acton Central ward would have a six-person ‘safer neighbourhoods’ police team from next April – matching those already operating in East Acton and South Acton wards.

In the evening we had compulsory training for Councillors on the Licensing Committee. Much of the discussion focused on the lessons to be learnt from the first panel meeting that had been held in the previous week (see my post for 4th October). For the next meetings, we decided to have a large notice on display listing the four legal licensing objectives - so that all who speak focus better on how their comments relate to these objectives, rather than wandering off to make wider and irrelevant points. Councillors on the Committee are now all devising their own acronyms to remember the objectives – preventing crime and disorder, public safety, the prevention of public nuisance, and the protection of children from harm.

After the training, I rang Sheela Selvajothy of the West Acton Residents Association (WARA) to check on what had been raised at their meeting this evening, given that I was required to attend the licensing training rather than be with them.