TCI Commentary:
Right from the category of news stories called ‘You couldn’t make this up …’ here is a great story from Bristol, where assiduous Councillors have instructed officials to rewrite a proposed consultation on sex shops and strip clubs. The delay is because they want the exercise to demonstrate all the pre-consultation discussions they have held with important people such as the Police & Crime Commissioner and key stakeholders such as Bristol Women’s Voice, Bristol Women’s Commission and the Fawcett Society.
In fact, they are quite right insofar as best practice demands that pre-consultation be thorough and transparent.
Whether elected members had precisely this ‘exposure’ in mind is quite another matter…
Article:
They made it look as though they hadn’t done any work on it for the past two years.
A public consultation on the future of Bristol’s strip clubs and sex shops has been delayed because officers failed to include the advice of experts and women’s rights campaigners in their report.
The city council’s licensing committee revealed the omissions in its new draft policy had caused “anger” by giving the impression a cross-party working group, formed in 2016 to draw up the new set of regulations, hadn’t done any work on it for the past two years.
Members went against officers’ recommendations to release the report for three months’ consultation and instead sent them back to the drawing board to rewrite it, demanding that this time they include the input they had gathered from a whole host of organisations.
Among the groups whose views appear to have been ignored in the revised policy are Bristol Women’s Voice, Bristol Women’s Commission, the Fawcett Society and Avon & Somerset police and crime commissioner (PCC) Sue Mountstevens.
The working party, comprising city hall officers and councillors, was set up to review the policy governing the number and type of sex establishments licensed by the council, which hasn’t been updated since 2011.
Licensing committee members rejected the report on Thursday (February 7) after criticising it for appearing to be the product of nothing more than the results of a questionnaire, which asked people whether lap-dancing clubs and sex shops were acceptable in various locations, like shopping centres and near parks.
Councillor Fi Hance said: “There’s a huge amount of work done but it’s not reflected in this report and that concerns me.
“I’m really concerned that all the conversations and information gathering, such as from Bristol Women’s Voice, aren’t included in this report.
“It looks as though we’ve drawn conclusions from a questionnaire and that’s it.
“Obviously those voices have to be heard, but there’s also an evidence base, such as what other authorities are doing, including those who have a cap of zero on sex establishments, and all that other work the group did that’s not here.
“It has created a degree of anger from various quarters.
“People aren’t being given all the information they need to give an informed response.”
Cllr Peter Abraham said: “I’m deeply concerned.
“It seems we’ve been spending a long time meeting some very interesting people, including the PCC, who’ve told us quite a lot, and yet here we are, we get this policy presented to us as if we haven’t existed, as if we haven’t done anything for the last two years.
“I find that quite amazing because it’s giving a completely wrong impression to the public.
“I want the public to be aware that the people who’ve been charged with the responsibility of dealing with this have done their homework, are knowledgeable, and it’s not just an officer report that somebody has just written up, because that’s what I’m reading and that’s what many members of the public are identifying.
“That does us a disservice. We’ve got to say no to this and we want a fresh piece of work brought before us.
“The views we’ve had expressed to us over that period should be a part of the report.”
City council regulatory services manager Nick Carter said: “I think we were trying, wrongly, to be economic in the report because we didn’t want to dilute the formal consultation.
“But officers could go away, amend the report to cover that full discussion and expand it with a detailed summary of all the work that was carried out through the working party.”
The draft policy is largely unchanged from the existing one but would now cover all sex establishments including erotic cinemas, although Bristol doesn’t currently have any, and not just sexual entertainment venues such as strip clubs.
The amended version with the additional information demanded by councillors will be presented at the next licensing committee, although no date has yet been set.
This article originally appeared on Bristol Live.
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