Temporary Event Notices
If you are organising a fund-raising event, you should make sure you have the appropriate licences in place first of all.
Under the Licensing Act 2003, permission from the Council is needed for “licensable activities” – which are generally selling alcohol, or providing entertainment (such as bands, discos, dancing, cinema or theatrical performances) and making facilities available for those activities.
These authorisations can normally be obtained through a simple procedure of Temporary Event Notices.
There are certain restrictions about the use of TENs, as they are known. These are:
- they may not be used for more than 96 hours at a time;
- there must be a break of at least 24-hours between two different sets of TENs;
- no more than 499 people (including staff) may be present at one time;
- personal licence holders cannot give more than 50 TENs in a calendar year, and non-personal licence holders are limited to 12 a year;
- premises cannot be used under a TENs for more than 15 days a year.
The most common reasons for applications being rejected are:
- not sending a copy of the TENs form to the police at the same time;
- forgetting to enclose the £21 fee to the Council with the form;
- not giving ten working days’ notice of the event.
The law requires that the Council adn the Police must have at least 10 working days notice of any event. This period cannot be waived and the does not include the day that the notice was given, the day of the event itself, and any weekdays or Bank Holidays.
For example, if an event is going to be held on 15 June, the notice should be at the Council by 30 May at the latest, to take account of the weekends. Ideally, allow at least three weeks' notice to be on the safe side.
Only the police can object to a TEN on the grounds of crime prevention. If you think a TEN is likely to cause concern to the police (perhaps because it’s for an event finishing in the early hours of the morning) it is helpful to discuss the event with them first.
Useful contacts: