Brigid Simmonds, chief executive of Business in Sport and Leisure (BISL) has slammed the government’s plans to increase fees for alcohol premises licences, saying that it will adversely affect thousands of large leisure outlets.

Culture secretary Tessa Jowell announced the new fee structure on 21 January, saying that it would enable licensing authorities to deliver “tougher protections against alcohol-related crime and disorder and public nuisance.”

“I am giving local authorities the power to run licensing regimes in their own areas,” she said. “These fees will give them the tools to do the job.”

Jowell has also declared that large urban pubs will have to pay a premium: “They are a major beneficiary of our night-time economy,” she said. “They should put more back into policing it.”

However, BISL has claimed that as the ‘huge hike’ in fees is based on rateable values, it will hit thousands of leisure businesses with no track record of contributing to anti-social behaviour. This means that large venues such as hotels, bingo clubs, casinos, sports and fitness clubs, racecourses, golf clubs and other commercial leisure venues will all be forced to pay high-end fees despite not being associated with binge-drinking.

“The licensing guidance made it clear that local authorities had to assess leisure premises on a risk basis,” said Simmonds. “There is clearly no risk of any alcohol related incidents from many large leisure outlets and yet fees for these venues have risen disproportionately.

“Improving the late-night culture and behaviour of young people is hugely important and in my opinion the industry is seized of this imperative. However, this announcement puts the burden on the vast number of large leisure outlets when the problem is caused by the few.”