Nigel Martin

The Loft lap-dancing appeal took place before the magistrates between 6 and 10 December, and the bench made the right decision to cancel the partial premises licence given by the City Council Licensing Committee earlier this year.

This was a triumph for a small group of people led by three ordinary residents of the City who, at some personal financial risk, decided to take on an organisation (Vimac Ltd) with lots of resources for barristers etc.

I was part of that group and was able to use my university knowledge and other contacts to provide solid evidence about the local environment: the closeness of various community facilities, the high resident student and elderly population nearby, and the long history of attacks on students in North Road and the surrounding area at certain times.

I also made a strong argument that if allowed the club would become a genuine ‘public nuisance’ in the broad sense of the term.

Other witnesses gave corroborative evidence on the student related issues, and challenged the assertion by Vimac that the arrangements for running the club would be satisfactory.

In the end the magistrates agreed with our side of the argument.

One of the good things about this was the non-party political nature of our group, so I am disappointed that things now seem to have descended into the usual political argy-bargy.

Yes, the Council Licensing Committee took the wrong decision, but this was not party-based; both Labour and Lib Dem members voted to allow a (very) restricted licence. Having talked to many of them, they did so because the advice of the council legal officer was that the police evidence was equivocal and they had no grounds under the law to do other than they did.

And herein lies the real problem - the Licensing Act. The Act is essentially permissive, which means that to turn a licence down is difficult unless one can demonstrate clearly that one of the four government created ‘licensing objectives’ will not be met.

I also spoke as an objector at the Council Committee and I will readily admit that my formal statement was not as well constructed as the one I made to the magistrate’s court. I had not done the quantitative research into the local demography at that point and I guess I believed that my basic arguments (addressed directly to the ‘licensing objectives’ and not on moral grounds) were weighty enough on their own. Clearly I was wrong, and I readily put my hands up now to admit it - but I will never make the same mistake again if presented with a similar situation.

So, taking stock (1) lap-dancing clubs are not illegal, but (2) we have proved that there are some places where they should not be. What is also very clear however is (3) that the Licensing Act has some real deficiencies if qualified legal advisers of councils find it hard to chart a course through its undergrowth to allow a council committee to come to the decision it actually would like to come to [I am not aware of anyone on that committee in Durham that actually wanted any sort of licence to be granted].

If our MP wants to achieve something out of all this, she should concentrate on  inadequacies of an Act imposed by her government rather than trying to score cheap points off the local council.