Temporary Event Notices

You’ll need to give at least 10 clear working days’ notice for a temporary event notice. When preparing your application, you’ll need to consider those 10 working days in mind.

The council will only refuse your application if they think your event could:

• Lead to crime and disorder
• Cause a public nuisance
• Be a threat to public safety
• Put children at risk of harm.
• They must let you know it’s been rejected within three working days of receiving your application.

Appeals must be made to a local Magistrates' court within 21 days. An appeal may not be brought later than five working days from the day of the planned event.

We often take appeals to courts. Our experts can help you take an appeal to your local Magistrates' court. Contact us to start your appeal.

When you submit your application, you’ll need to make sure you provide the following:

• A plan if required. If the event is in an open space, or a smaller section of a large event, it will be necessary to submit a floor plan clearly outlining the proposed area to be licensed for the event.

Personal licence holders can apply for:       

• Up to total of 50 temporary event notices per calendar year
• Up to 10 late temporary event notices per calendar year (these count towards the total number of temporary event notices permitted).

Without a personal licence, you can apply for:  

• Up to 5 temporary event notices per calendar year
• Up to 2 late temporary event notices per calendar year (these count towards the total number of temporary event notices permitted).

A premises can have up to 20 temporary event notices per calendar year. This is only if the total length of all events is not more than 26 days.

If you’ve exceeded the above, you’ll need to apply to for a premises licence or club premises certificate.

Our team of experts have extensive knowledge of the sector and can offer realistic and effective advice and work with you to achieve your objectives. We can work with you to make sure you have the correct licences in place for your event.

We’ve worked with various licensing authorities over the years and the benefit of our experience, enables us to anticipate the likely approach of these authorities. It also helps us to prepare applications, as far as possible, to achieve the best possible outcome for you.

When things go wrong, we’ve a strong background in successfully representing clients who’ve been subject to licence reviews and criminal proceedings in connection with their licence. We also have extensive experience in supporting our clients to appeal the decisions of licensing committees.

The legal world is full of jargon that a lot of us don’t understand. Our lawyers actively avoid using legal jargon and instead use plain English to make sure you know what’s happening and why. They’ll also be there to explain anything you might not understand.

We’ve worked with individuals and businesses of all sizes. Examples of our past clients include:

• Acting for a Soho-based nightclub seeking multiple TENs to increase the operating hours for licensable activities. The club wanted to hold events more frequently than the maximum allowance for TENs and as the premises are located within a stress area, there is a presumption against the grant of any variation to his licence. On this occasion, we were able to agree with Westminster council that each designated area within the nightclub, would be treated separately, to allow the maximum number of TENs to be used for each designated area.
• Acting for an off-licence operator who instructed us to secure the most temporary event notices possible per annum to increase the hours for off-sales of alcohol. Previously the police had visited the premises and there had been issues of antisocial behaviour. We entered into discussions with the police prior to lodging the TENs and we were able to agree conditions to avoid any objections from the police. We were able to secure the maximum allowance of TENs without any objections being received from the police or other authorities.
• We acted for a music festival organiser, who instructed us to obtain an event licence at the Henley Royal Regatta. As the operator would be holding events at the same location regularly each year, we made an application for a premises licence. We knew that we would likely receive objections from residents and this ensued and the matter proceeded to a licensing committee hearing where we were successful in achieving the grant of a permanent new premises licence.
• Acting for a restaurant operator, who acquired the premises space next door and wanted to increase the current restaurant space to include the new space. There was a bar installed in the new space, but the operator had not yet taken steps to vary her existing premises licence to include the new space and could not use this without varying her licence or applying for a new one. We obtained several temporary event notices for the operator, so that she could utilise the new space whilst a variation application was in progress. This meant that the client could use the additional area with alcohol sales without being in breach of her existing licence or of any laws. The variation application was subsequently granted, prior to the client reaching her maximum limit of TENs.