Review applications
Residents are reminded to ensure that they comply precisely with the rather prescriptive requirements of Licensing Act 2003 when preparing and serving review applications. Two cases where not quite all the ‘i’s were dotted and the ‘t’s crossed have received quite a lot of publicity in licensing circles. In both cases there were failures to comply with the requirements, to a greater or lesser degree, and in each case the Magistrates’ Court on appeal decided that the procedural failures rendered the applications null and void, nothwithstanding that no prejudice was caused to any party.
Although there are in fact other decisions in the Magistrates’ Court which have taken an opposing view that such defects to not render the application null and void, it is obviously safer to make sure that everything is done correctly in the first place, particularly the requirement that the review application is given to all the bodies required to be served, on the same day as it is given to the licensing authority.