New permanent street café rules welcomed by Birmingham nightlife chiefs

Nightlife chiefs in Birmingham have welcomed new legislation to make street café culture a permanent part of the city’s hospitality offering.

The government has announced that temporary pavement licensing provisions introduced in 2020 as a result of the Covid lockdown and social distancing rules will now remain in force for good.

The establishment of a permanent pavement licensing regime for England has been laid out in the new Levelling Up and Regeneration Act 2023.

Lawrence Barton, the nighttime economy champion for Birmingham City Council and chair of Southside BID, said: “We welcome this commonsense move. This positively builds on some of the excellent restructuring decisions developed during Covid and will help Birmingham’s entertainment zones to attract and accommodate more people.

“We look forward to working with the local authorities to make sure that these new regulations are used properly to enable hospitality businesses in our city to expand. We would alsolike to see the government go one step further by introducing additional legislation to further promote cafe culture.”

Mike Olley, general manager of Westside BID, said: “This is an excellent start in helping entertainment zones with open spaces to focus on developing street cafés. It could lead to a great increases in footfall, especially during the daytime and early evenings with families, staff, business leaders and convention visitors looking for places to relax and enjoy.

“This is the first step of many that are needed, such as allowing services to cross pavements, and doing away with the legal rules that insists pavement licenses can only be immediately adjacent to licensed premises. We will continue to press for these.”

Wayne Tracey, of Snobs nightclub on Broad Street, said: “We have some space immediately outside Snobs and are keen to develop this as part of our new daytime offering to customer, so we’ll be working hard to make full use of these new rules as soon as possible.”

And David Dindol, manager at the Missing Bar, an award-winning LGBT venue in the heart of Birmingham's Gay Village, added: “We’ve got loads of pavement space outside our premises and this is exactly what we need to develop a permanent café.” 

The new permanent pavement licensing provisions replace the temporary provisions introduced in the Business and Planning Act 2020. They were announced in a letter sent by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to all council leaders and chief executives of English local planning authorities.

Under the new regime, local authorities can now grant pavement licences for a length of their choosing, up to a maximum of two years. The Department said it encourages local authorities to grant businesses the maximum two years "unless there is a good reason to do otherwise".

For further information visit: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pavement-licences-guidance.