Sussex Garage Secures 24-Hour Alcohol License

A garage has secured permission for 24-hour alcohol sales.

On Thursday (April 3), a Wealden District Council licensing panel approved proposals to vary a premises licence attached to Horam Service Station in Little London Road.

These variations allow the business to sell alcohol for 24-hours a day, seven days a week.

They will also allow the business to sell “late night refreshments”, limited to teas and coffees, between 11pm and 5am.

The proposed changes had seen objections from a number of nearby residents, who raised fears around noise and disturbance from the extended opening hours and sale of alcohol.

Representing these residents, licensing agent Oisin Daly said:

“I would like to frame this application as it really is; an application to grant a licence to a 24 hour licence to a shop in a residential area.

“If it was framed in it that way … if I were to say please grant this 24-hour licence in a residential area, I think you would probably go no.”

He added:

“This is a Nisa Express in a residential area. There are residents behind me who are extremely concerned about the impact that will have on them, primarily around public nuisance but also the risk of crime and disorder occurring in and around those premises.

“The representations you have received are from individuals who live beside the premises, above the premises and in the immediate vicinity of the premises. This shop is surrounded by residential premises.”

But, in representing applicant Premakanth Uthayakumaran, licensing consultant Gill Sherratt stressed that the garage already has the ability to begin opening 24 hours a day.

She said the business intended to operate to these hours in an effort to improve its on-site security and argued it would be appropriate for it to be able to sell alcohol alongside its other products.

In making this argument, Miss Sherratt pointed to the council’s own licensing policy, which says “the council will generally consider licensing shops, stores and supermarkets to

sell alcohol for consumption off the premises at any time they are lawfully open for

trading.”

Miss Sherratt said:

“Without fail, 24-hour alcohol goes with 24-hour opening. The reason for that is that alcohol sales from a forecourt do not cause problems.

“A forecourt … is [not] the place where people who might want to act in a way that is not acceptable [will go]. They are not going to do it on a forecourt; it is too light, it is too full of CCTV, they can’t get in.

“So, there is no evidence, anywhere across the country for all of these years for any disturbance in a forecourt that I am aware of and I have thousands of forecourt clients.

"They are the best operators and they are not conducive for people going to cause trouble related to alcohol.”

Miss Sherratt also set out how the extended hours would be covered by new conditions, which are not currently on the licence, such as CCTV controls and a challenge 25 policy for restricted sales. She said the business also intends to install a security hatch to the building for all sales after 11pm.

She said most of these conditions had been developed in agreement with Sussex Police, which she noted had not raised any objections to the proposals.

Miss Sherratt also pointed to Mr Uthayakumaran’s track record of running and working in 24-hour garages, as well as his ongoing work as a special constable with the Metropolitan Police.

She argued this experience demonstrated his credentials as a responsible operator.