Little progress has been made in addressing the lack of coordination between the licensing and planning systems, a House of Lords committee has reported.
A study by peers, a follow-up to a critical 2017 select committee report on the Licensing Act, found that little had changed in five years.
Peers urged councils to adopt a mandatory minimum standard of training for councillors who join local licensing committees to ensure greater consistency in decision-making.
They also reported little co-ordination between key licensing and planning decisions when it comes to disabled people’s access to buildings.
The new study read: ‘The lack of progress in improving access to licensed premises for disabled people is unacceptable.’
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering, who chaired the 2017 select committee on the Licensing Act, said: ‘Our original inquiry concluded that the Licensing Act 2003 was fundamentally flawed and needed a radical overhaul.
'It is now five years since we published our findings and we have not seen the progress we had hoped.
‘We urge the Government to review our conclusions and recommendations and act now to tackle the issues that remain unresolved.’
