Late night tax on clubs and pubs set to be axed

A charge on a city's pubs, bars, and clubs that funds safety measures looks set to be abolished following a key meeting.

Newcastle City Council's licencing committee agreed the late night levy should be scrapped during a meeting on Monday.

It means a consultation must now take place, with the Lib-Dem council expected to make a final decision in October at a full council meeting.

The levy is an annual fee of between £299 and £4,400, currently charged to 281 businesses in the city with a licence to sell alcohol between midnight and 06:00.

It has raised more than £3m since its introduction in 2013 and has been used to fund extra police patrols, taxi marshals and CCTV in the city centre, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

But industry leaders have called for it to be dropped because of the financial pressures facing the hospitality sector.

Ahead of the meeting, city council leader Colin Ferguson said he wanted the levy to be axed, as it placed an "additional and disproportionate pressure" on late night venues.

Newcastle is one of only two cities outside London to apply the charge and the committee was told that other cities that had cancelled it, like Nottingham, had reported no negative feedback.

Stephen Patterson, chief executive of Newcastle Business Improvement District company NE1 Ltd, pledged that its removal would not result in a decline in safety.

If it is dropped, it is expected that the council and NE1 would set up a new fund to match the finances being lost to pay for safety measures.

Reform UK councillor David Orr, who chaired Monday's meeting, said it was an "opportunity to give businesses a reprieve".

He highlighted complaints over a lack of transparency on how the levy was spent, saying the portion allocated to the police "just went into a pot and wasn't necessarily spent on night-time economy policing".

Byker councillor Nick Hartley, leader of the city's Green group, said he wanted the council to back small and independent businesses "while making our city safer, cleaner and more welcoming".

He said the levy was not "working fairly, and replacing it removes an unnecessary extra burden from small businesses while protecting the funding that keeps people safe at night and helps keep our city clean".

If the decision is confirmed, it is expected it would be scrapped from 31 October.

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