The council cannot ‘ban strip clubs’ in town during week of the Festival

IT was disappointing to read our MP Alex Chalk’s attack on the council’s licensing committee for licensing sexual entertainment venues during race week (Echo, March 14, 2024). As a government minister and KC, he should know the law.

He called on the council to “ban strip clubs”. He knows we can’t.

Sexual entertainment venues (SEVS) only appear in Cheltenham during race week and there is a specific exemption in the Local Government Act that allows SEVS to “pop up” unlicensed as many as 11 times during any 12-month period – more than enough to allow them unlicensed and unregulated during the races.

And sure enough one did “pop up” last week.

Unlike the two SEVS licensed by the council, the venue didn’t even have to tell council officers what it was doing and there were no SEV licence conditions to enforce to make sure advertising was controlled, the public were protected from nuisance and performers were kept safe. No surprise then that the performers – perhaps the most vulnerable of all in this – tell the committee every year to issue licenses rather than run the risk of unregulated, unlicensed venues.

Mr Chalk also said the council dismissed “a small minority with moral objections”. Wrong again.

His government’s own guidance says that “objections should not be based on moral grounds”, citing common law, specifically ‘R’ vs Newcastle upon Tyne City Council 2001.

Finally he insinuates that we don’t prioritise the safety of women and girls.

This does a real disservice to conscientious officers who work closely with clubs, pubs and door staff, the police, volunteers and women’s organisations every year, commissioned the very research on women’s safety that Mr Chalk quotes and promote schemes like Ask for Angela as well as deploying mobile CCTV, extra patrols and long hours of overtime to help keep women safer in Cheltenham in race weeks. Councillor Martin Horwood Liberal Democrat borough and parish councillor for Leckhampton