To replace the requirement to have a DPS with the alternative licence condition, please complete the online application form; you will need a credit/debit card to pay the £23 application fee. 

The application must come from a committee or board with responsibility for the management of the community premises. A ‘committee’ or ‘board of individuals’ is intended to cover any formally constituted, transparent and accountable management committee or structure. It should have the capacity to provide sufficient oversight of the premises to minimise any risk to the licensing objectives that could arise from allowing the responsibility for supervising the sale of alcohol to be transferred from a DPS. This could include management committees, executive committees and boards of trustees. The application form requires the applicant to provide the names of the management committee’s main officers eg the chair, secretary, treasurer.

A copy of the application must be submitted to the Police* at:

Alcohol & Entertainment Licensing Officer
Hampshire Constabulary
Bishops Waltham Police Station
Hoe Road
Bishops Waltham
SO32 1DS

*If you complete your application online, the licensing authority will notify the Police on your behalf. 

The Chief Officer of Police has 14 days from the date in which the Police receive their copy of the application to object the variation, where they are satisfied the crime prevention licensing objective would be undermined.

If you wish to disapply the mandatory conditions when submitting an application for a New Premises Licence or an application to vary a Premises Licence, please follow the respective links. 

In most cases, it should be self evident whether a premises is or forms part of a community premises, such as a church hall, chapel hall, village hall, parish hall, community hall or other similar building. The criteria are the same as those used for the purposes of fees exemptions, so premises that have an existing premises licence and qualify for fee exemptions for regulated entertainment will also be ‘community premises’ for these purposes.

Where it is not clear, the main criteria will be how the premises are predominantly used. Those premises that are made available for community benefit most of the time and accessible by a broad range of persons and sectors of the community, including for purposes beneficial to the community as a whole, are likely to meet the definition.

Many premises such as schools and private halls are made available for private hire by the general public. This fact alone would not be sufficient for such premises to qualify as community premises. Although this might be seen as providing a facility for the community, licensing authorities will consider whether halls used largely for private hire by individuals or private entities are genuinely by their nature ‘community premises’. The test is whether the predominant use of the premises is for community benefit rather than the utility of the premises for members of the community for private purposes.

If the general use of the premises is contingent upon membership of a particular organisation, this would strongly suggest that the premises in question are not a ‘community premises’ within the definition. However, hiring the premises to individual organisations and users who restrict their activities to their own members and guests would not necessarily conflict with the status of the premises as ‘community premises’, provided the premises are generally available for use by the community in the sense described above.