Agenda item

Mr Robert Ursell

The Licensing Officer, Mr Phil Cooper introduced the report and explained to the Committee that Mr Ursell had made an application for a street trading consent to sell cut flowers, pot plants and seasonal floral goods at the corner of High Street and Church Street. Appendix A and Appendix B showed the proposed location and an image of the trading unit. Mr Ursell had applied for consent to trade from 7^th December to 24^th December 2017 between the hours of 07:00 and 19:00 hours. The case had been referred to Committee because it was not in an approved location in the street trading policy, however, Mr Cooper informed Members that the location had been used previously for trading, including by Mr Ursell.

Members were advised by the Officer that having regard to the facts, Members should decide whether to:

Approve the application because Members were satisfied that the location, size of unit and type of goods were suitable or;

Refuse the application because it does not comply with the council’s adopted policy as the location is not approved for street trading. 

The Members began by querying whether there had been any previous complaints regarding trading in this location. The Licensing Officer informed Members that there had been one, he explained that this had been made in 2011 from a nearby shop which complained that Mr Ursell had encroached on the space outside the shop. Mr Ursell claimed that he was unaware of the complaint and Mr Cooper advised that this matter had been resolved and there were no further issues.

The Members proceeded to ask Mr Ursell a series of questions and he was invited to provide a statement in support of his application. His responses were as follows:

·           He confirmed it had been a family run business for 114 years and he had been trading up until 2015.

·           He informed Members that for the past 4 years he had been suffering from a series of serious health issues and he now felt up to trading again.

·           Members raised some concern over the timings he was proposing to trade considering his health issues. Mr Ursell confirmed he would likely to be trading from 9am – 4pm/5pm but wanted the leniency in case trade was going well.

·           Members also questioned whether he would be happy to trade within the designated area given the previous complaint and if the picture in Appendix B was a fair representation of what he was proposing. Mr Ursell confirmed he would stick within the designated 2.1m x 1.2m space and was likely to use the floor space rather than a barrow.

·           Members also questioned how he proposed to restock as it was a limited sized stall. Mr Ursell confirmed he had permission to park his van in the churchyard and restock from there.

Following a short discussion, Members agreed that no harm would be caused from Mr Ursell trading in the designated area given that it was for such a limited time.

The committee were invited to vote on section 1.4.1.

 The committee voted unanimously in favour of granting the application. 

RESOLVED THAT

The application be approved because Members were satisfied that the location, size of unit and type of goods were suitable.