The fees and charges for a variety of licences issued by the council could go up from next spring if councillors approve a package of measures next week.
The price increases are expected to affect licences for taxi and private hire drivers and operators as well as the likes of street traders, casinos, bingo halls, sex shops and body-piercing premises.
The proposals – mostly for increases of about 5 per cent – are due to be decided by Brighton and Hove City Council’s Licensing Committee at Hove Town Hall on Thursday (10 October).
If the committee rejects any of the recommendations, they are likely to be decided by the council’s cabinet at a meeting scheduled to take place on Thursday 13 February as part of the budget-setting.
A report to the Licensing Committee said that, legally, the council should not make a profit from licence fees but should set them at a level to cover the relevant administrative costs.
The report also said: “The proposed fees for 2025-26 take account of inflation, particularly on staffing costs, ensuring that costs are fully recovered.
“This is necessary in order to ensure that council tax payers are not subsidising work concerning licensing administration.”
Among the changes will be the cost of a pitch at the Saturday market in Upper Gardner Street which is slated to go up from £590 to £620 – or 5.1 per cent.
In other areas, the annual fee for a street trader’s pitch could rise from £4,900 to £5,150 for a bigger pitch (50sq ft) or from £4,020 to £4,220 for a smaller one (42sq ft).
Stalls at occasional farmers’ markets could go up by 4 per cent from £250 to £260 per stall and street artists would be expected to pay 5.7 per cent more – £37, up from £35.
The annual fees for sex shops and strip clubs are expected to go up from just under £4,000 to just over
The cost of a new body-piercing premises licence is proposed to rise by 3 per cent from £165 to £170 – the same as the proposed change to the cost of licensing a new practitioner.
The Licensing Committee is due to meet at Hove Town Hall at 3pm on Thursday (10 October). The meeting is scheduled to be webcast on the council’s website.
Surprise surprise, so what will be the licence fee for breathing on a beach walk compared to the fee for breathing inner city air ???
No mention of HMO licences? The cost of a HMO licence is too little considering the impact they have on areas where there are too many. They are only charged only once every 4 years. We should discourage HMO’s and these properties should return to single family occupancy.
Those are being effectively expanded under the selective housing licencing scheme currently?
HMOs only exist in these numbers because of the eternal housing shortage, well manipulated to keep the property owners in eternal wealth, people in Government and Councillors who own more than the house they live in should be excluded from any vote on housing expansion and rent control.
Same problem with transport, if they expect people to leave their cars at home and use Public Transport then the Public Transport has to work for the public and not the Trade Unions, apart from signals down every week and various other excuse not to run, who owns the company repairing the signals every week around Brighton ??? should buy some shares in that one, seems to be the only part of British Rail that makes a profit. Sunday morning rant over,,,, for now
Thousands of people live in hmos across the city. Many of them working, including key workers. Single person housing is much more expensive and is in short supply. Removing HMOs would hurt many hard. Increasing costs will also be passed on to the tenants, many of them not well paid
Yes, we need more family homes. But we also need more homes for single people. Build lots more of these at the right price and HMOs will reduce.
HMO licenses don’t come under the remit of the Licensing Committee which is why they aren’t included.
Well, with the CEO Jess ‘Funky’ Gibbon on a £200k package, where do you think the money has to come from?
These fees are ring-fenced and can’t be used to pay for anything except the cost of administering the licensing function.
Perhaps you should read the committee report before commenting.
https://democracy.brighton-hove.gov.uk/documents/s202895/Licence%20fees%20202526.pdf
income from parking is also ring-fenced and can’t be allowed to make a profit. But the council does, with over £20m, so any similar ring-fencing is also taken with more than a pinch of salt. Yes, it should only be used to cover costs – but how much are these really checked? Are time sheets completed for teamwork? Reports written to check this over the years? I’ve never seen any. The council is very vulnerable to a challenge on this, especially for transport, but also in other areas.
Parking IS ringfenced and a separate report and accounts has to be published every year. And all available on the council website.
The surplus (and it is legal for a council to make a surplus) can only be spent on trasnport issues and the bulk of the surplus (around £13m) is spent on the concessionary fares scheme
a large surplus is not allowed – see the Barnet case with the RAC. A small surplus is OK as some years there could also be a small loss – however the scale of profits locally along with comments made by councillors is ripe for a legal challenge by an organisation with deep pockets.