4. Alcohol licensing action

Community engagement in alcohol licensing decision-making

Core principles of CICA

• It was anticipated that building community assets using a champion-based model would result in grassroots organising and mobilisation
• Having a licensing officer as a point of contact to support and advise communities would result in relationship building with decision makers/networks 
• Training on how to engage with the licensing process would help alcohol health champions (AHCs) to use their confidence to put skills into practice and roll-out further training
• Increasing the strengths, motivations and skills of community members as alcohol health champions would result in increased community engagement
• AHCs could use their knowledge and skills to influence the local alcohol licensing policy context e.g. taking part in consultation processes such as cumulative impact assessments and reviews of statements of licensing policy (SOLP)

Evaluation recommendations:

• In order to intervene in licensing policy, consider an intervention at a wider scale 
• Provide dedicated community licensing officers with adequate resources and capacity to deliver a training and support programme at a local authority level (average 180,000 population) 
• Mobilise communities in areas where there are higher numbers of licensed premises
• Our research suggests that local licensing policy might benefit from a re-balance to become more community-centred, with the support of national policy to address fears of reprisal, and setting out standards to increase the inclusivity and accessibility of statutory processes
• See Evaluation design for recommendations for future research

Our CICA public involvement representative Sue Hare shares her top tips to help local residents influence alcohol licensing decisions and report concerns to promote the four licensing objectives of the Licensing Act 2003: prevention of crime and disorder, public safety, prevention of public nuisance and the protection of children from harm.

Where to find published research findings

Ure C, Burns EJ, Hargreaves SC, Hidajat M, Coffey M, de Vocht F, et al. How can communities influence alcohol licensing at a local level? Licensing officers’ perspectives of the barriers and facilitators to sustaining engagement in a volunteer-led alcohol harm reduction approach. International Journal of Drug Policy 2021; 98:103412. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drug...

Burns EJ, de Vocht F, Teixeira Siqueira N, Ure C, Audrey S, Coffey M, et al. An ‘alcohol health champions’ intervention to reduce alcohol harm in local communities: a mixed-methods evaluation of a natural experiment. Public Health Research (in press)