The Licensing Act 2003 came into force on 6 February 2005.

The new Licensing Act will require all premises where licensable activities are being provided to obtain a Premises Licence. Licensable activities include the supply of alcohol, the provision of entertainment and the sale of hot food or hot drink after 11.00pm.

It will be an offence to provide these activities without there being a Premises Licence in force.The penalty will be upto £20,000 fine and  or  up to six months imprisonment or both.

What happens to existing licences?

The new law requires all current licence holders to convert to the new form of licence

The 6 month transitional period for conversion of existing liquor, entertainment, cinema, theatre and night cafe licences commenced on 7th February 2005 and ends on 6 August 2005.

Applicants for conversion of existing licences to a Premises Licence will generally keep the rights that they currently have under their exisiting licences without the need for a hearing if they apply before 6 August 2005.

The law states that  anybody who has not applied for converting their current Justices Licence to the new form of licence before 6 August  will then need to apply for a brand new licence with all the additional costs that that will entail.(Including advertising costs,increased  local authority fees and valuable time wasted at hearings, the new licence training qualification costs and added to this the risk of the application for the new licence being refused based on objections for example by the police or local residents.)

On any new licence application applicants will not be able to rely on any rights they had under their old Justices Licence unless they apply to convert those rights before 6 August 2005.


We at Alliance have specialist and expert knowledge of the new law and can provide a "one stop" solution (inclusive of survey plans) to convert your current Justices Licence to the new regime and or make a fresh application for a new licence at a very cost effective price.

In order to avoid the huge amount of applications which Local Authorities will no doubt receive around August 2005 we urge you to act now and contact us for a quotation and  commence work on your behalf with the conversion of your current licence to the new regime to enable minimal disruption to your business.


Please contact us for further details and a fuller discussion on the quotation for your premises and personal licence.