A pavement licence allows business owners and managers to use removable furniture outside the business premises for the sale and consumption of food or drink.
If you are an owner or manager of a premises serving food and drink (such as bars, restaurants and cafes), you can apply for a pavement licence to place removable furniture (including tables and chairs) outside the premises.
The area where you want to place to removable furniture must be part of the highway. If the area is privately owned, you may not need a licence and should contact the landowner.
You can check the status of the land to confirm whether it falls within the definition of a highway by looking at Essex County Council's highways information map (you need to select ‘Asset Data’ then ‘Highway Record’).
If you want to place permanent furniture outside your premises, you will need to apply for a tables and chairs licence.
For more information, check the pavement licence guidance on GOV.UK
You can also find full details in our pavement licence procedure (pdf)
Apply
To apply for a pavement licence, you need to:
- complete the pavement licence application form (pdf)
- pay the fee of £500 for a new application or £350 for a renewal and include confirmation of your payment (call 01279 446655 to pay the application fee, providing the payment reference 19421 2772)
- provide a plan showing the location of the premises defined by a red line, so the application site can be clearly identified
- provide a plan clearly showing the proposed area covered by the licence in relation to the highway, if not to scale, with measurements clearly shown (the plan must show the positions and number of the proposed tables and chairs, together with any other items that you want to place on the highway and include clear measurements of pathway width and length, building width and any other fixed items in the proposed area)
- provide evidence of the right to occupy the premises (such as the lease)
- include photographs or brochures showing the type of furniture, and the potential siting of it within the area applied for
- provide evidence that you have met the requirement with regard to the site notice (for example, photographs of the notice outside the premises and of the notice itself)
- include a copy of a current certificate of insurance that covers the activity for third party and public liability risks, to a minimum value of £10 million pounds (£5 million if on other land not part of the highway)
- provide any other evidence needed to demonstrate how the council’s local conditions and any national conditions will be met
You need to send all your application information to licensing@harlow.gov.uk
Once your application has been submitted, we have 28 days from the day after the application is made (excluding public holidays) to consult on and determine the application. This consists of 14 days for consultation, and then 14 days to consider and determine the application.
We will either grant a pavement licence, together with conditions or reject your application.
If we do not give you a decision within the 28 day period, the licence is considered granted.
Giving notice of you application
On the same day that you make your application for a pavement licence you must:
- fix a notice of the application (docx) to the premises so that the notice is readily visible to, and can be read easily by members of the public who are not on the premises (evidence required)
- ensure that the notice remains in place until the end of the 14 day consultation period, starting on the next calendar day after the application was made (excluding public holidays)
Consultation period
The public consultation on your application starts on the next calendar day after the application has been made (excluding public holidays).
If we find your application is missing information, the consultation period will start the day after we receive the missing information.
The consultation process is legally required and either members of the public or stakeholders can object to the proposals - objections can be submitted to licensing@harlow.gov.uk.
We will take into account representations we receive during the public consultation period and consider these when determining your application.
We will also publish details of your application on our public notices page.
Conditions
You will need to adhere to the pavement licence conditions (pdf) once you have been granted a licence.
We may apply additional conditions or restrictions to individual licences.
Enforcement
We monitor licensed pavement areas to check businesses are complying with the terms of the licence.
In cases where furniture has been placed on a highway without a licence, we can give a notice requiring the business to remove it and not use it until they get a licence.
If the business continues to use the furniture, we may remove and store it, then recover the costs from the business. We will not return the furniture until the costs are paid.
If within 3 months of the notice, the costs are not paid, we can dispose of the furniture by sale or other means and retain the proceeds.