24-hour alcohol licence for Doncaster Morrison’s Daily store approved – setting up planning showdown

Members of the City of Doncaster Council’s licencing sub-committee granted, with conditions, an application from Barnby Retail Limited to make variations to the current alcohol licence at the Morrison’s Daily store on High Street in Barnby Dun.

It means the applicants will now need to submit an application to the council’s planning department to change conditions set in 2019 restricting opening hours to 7am to 10pm Monday to Sunday.

Solicitor Robert Botkai, representing the applicants, said his clients “weren’t aware of the planning restriction” when they purchased the store from the Co-op in recent years.

He said the store did open briefly for 24 hours, as many of the applicant’s convenience stores do, before they were notified of the restriction on opening hours.

He told the sub-committee: “They will submit an application to planning to change that. [The applicants] are also aware that if the 24-hour licence is granted today, they will not be able to operate it until changes are made to the planning.

“We are asking you today to grant the variation on the basis that we know full well that we wouldn’t be operating this.”

The meeting heard from Fiona Boothroyd, senior environmental health practitioner at the council, who raised concerns about public nuisance impacts for nearby residents, such as “traffic coming and going from the property” and youths congregating at unsociable hours.

In the meeting, Mr Botkai repeatedly shut down these concerns, insisting they were planning issues and were not “real evidence” that granting the application would attract anti-social behaviour to the area.

He added: “A ‘chance’ of public nuisance does not satisfy the tests.”

Mrs Boothroyd pressed the applicants on whether it plans to offer Just Eat or Deliveroo-type services throughout the night.

The applicants said it would depend on the availability of delivery drivers, but said they would agree to a condition preventing outbound delivery services overnight.

After hearing from all parties, councillors deliberated their decision in private, before the meeting returned to hear the verdict.

Meeting chair councillor Linda Curran said the sub-committee had chosen to grant the application, which included permission to offer “late night refreshment” from 11pm to 5am for an in-store coffee machine.

It came with the condition restricting outbound delivery services between 10pm and 6am.

The store owners will now need to submit an application to the planning department to change restrictions on its opening hours, in order to utilise the 24-hour alcohol licence.

As previously reported by the Local Democracy Reporting Service, the application sought permission for the store to sell alcohol between 00:00 and 00:00 Monday through Sunday.