Alcohol licensing enforcement in England and Wales spans routine licence reviews, urgent interim measures, hearings and action against personal licences. The latest available figures recorded 412 premises-licence reviews in the year ending 31 March 2024, alongside 224,100 premises licences on issue as at 31 March 2024. Older official returns add detail on why reviews began, who initiated them and what decisions followed.
Contents
- Current scale of the licensing system
- Completed reviews and enforcement reasons
- Who initiated licensing reviews
- Outcomes after a review
- Expedited reviews and interim measures
- Hearings, appeals and personal licences
Current scale of the licensing system
The most recent figures in this set come from Alcohol licensing, England and Wales, April 2023 to March 2024. At 31 March 2024, England and Wales had 900,300 personal licences on issue and 224,100 premises licences on issue. The same release recorded 13,000 club premises certificates and 10,300 premises with 24-hour alcohol licences.
The wider enforcement environment also includes local policy tools. There were 182 cumulative impact areas across 75 licensing authorities at 31 March 2024. Nine licensing authorities had a late-night levy in place, and those nine levies raised about £2.6 million in the year ending 31 March 2024.
Licensing authorities carried out 412 premises-licence reviews in the year ending 31 March 2024. That was 65 more than the 347 reviews recorded in the year ending 31 March 2022. The same 2024 return recorded about 147,300 temporary event notices during the year ending 31 March 2024, showing the scale of activity that sits alongside permanent premises licensing.
| Measure | Figure | Measurement period |
|---|---|---|
| Personal licences on issue | 900,300 | 31 March 2024 |
| Premises licences on issue | 224,100 | 31 March 2024 |
| Premises-licence reviews | 412 | Year ending 31 March 2024 |
| Temporary event notices | About 147,300 | Year ending 31 March 2024 |
| Cumulative impact areas | 182 across 75 authorities | 31 March 2024 |
The 2024 figures also identify a specific enforcement concern. Nine premises had additional licence conditions imposed because of spiking concerns in the year ending 31 March 2024. No premises licences were revoked specifically because of spiking concerns during that period. These figures describe recorded licensing action, not the overall prevalence of spiking incidents.
Source: Alcohol licensing, England and Wales, April 2023 to March 2024.
Completed reviews and enforcement reasons
For a more detailed breakdown of review activity, the official Alcohol and late night refreshment licensing, England and Wales, 31 March 2017 release recorded 600 completed alcohol-licence reviews in the year ending 31 March 2017. At least one review was completed by 177 licensing authorities, while 168 authorities completed none. The largest number completed by a single authority was 31.
The recorded routes into those reviews included 471 premises-licence reviews following a general review application, 94 following a police expedited-review application and 15 following a closure order. There were also six club-premises-certificate reviews following a general application. These are counts of completed reviews by route, so they should not be treated as a measure of all complaints or all enforcement contacts.
The reasons cited in completed alcohol-licence reviews show the issues most often documented in that 2017 return. Crime and disorder was cited in 467 reviews. Public nuisance appeared in 195, public safety in 176 and the sale of illicit alcohol in 93. A single review could involve more than one licensing objective or reason, so these categories should not be added as if they were mutually exclusive cases.
The 2017 figures are historical. They provide a detailed baseline for understanding enforcement patterns at that time and should not be presented as a current estimate of review activity. The source label is retained here because the measurement period matters when comparing them with the 2024 figures.
Source: Alcohol and late night refreshment licensing, England and Wales, 31 March 2017.
Who initiated licensing reviews
The 2017 return also recorded the bodies and groups that initiated completed alcohol-licence reviews. Police forces initiated 309. Trading standards initiated 120, environmental health officers initiated 44 and local residents initiated 37. Other responsible authorities or interested parties initiated 78.
| Initiating group | Completed reviews initiated | Year ending 31 March 2017 |
|---|---|---|
| Police forces | 309 | England and Wales |
| Trading standards | 120 | England and Wales |
| Environmental health officers | 44 | England and Wales |
| Local residents | 37 | England and Wales |
| Other responsible authorities or interested parties | 78 | England and Wales |
Police forces therefore accounted for the largest recorded initiating group in this historical dataset, while trading standards was the next largest. The figures also show that residents and environmental health officers formed part of the recorded enforcement pathway, rather than reviews being initiated only by police or licensing teams.
For bar managers, the practical point is that licensing risk can surface through different responsible authorities and interested parties. The counts do not establish the cause of any individual review, nor do they indicate that every review began with a single initiating body. They report the categories used by the 2017 statistical return.
Outcomes after a review
The 2017 outcome data shows that enforcement did not have one single endpoint. Licence conditions were added or modified in 376 completed alcohol-licence reviews. A licence was revoked or a club-premises certificate withdrawn in 207 reviews. A designated premises supervisor was removed in 61 premises-licence reviews, while a licence or certificate was suspended in 88 reviews. No action was taken in 30 reviews.
The newer 2024 return records a different set of headline outcomes for 412 premises licences reviewed in the year ending 31 March 2024. Of those, 163 were revoked or withdrawn, 49 were suspended and 31 had no further action taken. These categories are useful indicators of recorded outcomes, but the releases cover different years and may use different reporting scopes, so they should not be treated as a like-for-like trend series beyond the figures explicitly stated.
| Recorded outcome | Year ending 31 March 2017 | Year ending 31 March 2024 |
|---|---|---|
| Revoked or withdrawn | 207 reviews | 163 reviews |
| Suspended | 88 reviews | 49 reviews |
| No action or no further action | 30 reviews | 31 reviews |
| Conditions added or modified | 376 reviews | Not stated here |
| Designated premises supervisor removed | 61 reviews | Not stated here |
An older official source, Alcohol Entertainment and Late Night Refreshment Licensing Statistical Bulletin Oct08 update, recorded 91 suspensions in completed reviews in the year ending 31 March 2007. It recorded 92 premises licences revoked or club-premises certificates withdrawn and about 110 completed reviews resulting in modified operating hours. Those 2007 figures are legacy historical statistics and are not independently verified here; they are included only as reported by that source.
Source: Alcohol Entertainment and Late Night Refreshment Licensing Statistical Bulletin Oct08 update.
Expedited reviews and interim measures
Expedited action provides a distinct view of urgent licensing enforcement. In the year ending 31 March 2017, licensing authorities received 100 applications for an expedited alcohol-premises-licence review. One application was withdrawn. Interim steps were taken for 87 reviews, while no interim steps were taken for eight.
The interim measures recorded in the same return included licence suspension in 74 expedited reviews. Conditions were added or modified in 26, operating hours were modified in 12 and the designated premises supervisor was removed in 12. Licensable activity was partially restricted in three reviews and completely excluded in one.
These counts describe measures that could overlap within the same expedited review. For example, a review could involve both suspension and another change. They should therefore be read as action categories, not as a distribution in which every case appears exactly once.
The figures also separate an expedited application from the eventual outcome of a full review. An interim measure is recorded during the urgent process; it is not automatically the final licensing decision. That distinction is important when bar operators compare temporary restrictions with revocation, withdrawal, suspension or modified conditions reported after completed reviews.
Hearings, appeals and personal licences
Committee hearings covered 2,480 premises-licence or club-premises-certificate applications in the year ending 31 March 2017. Those applications were accounted for by 285 licensing authorities. Committee hearings also covered 49 personal-licence applications, accounted for by 38 licensing authorities.
The same return recorded 79 completed appeals against alcohol-licence application decisions. In 296 licensing authorities, no appeal against an alcohol-licence application decision was completed. The appeal figures concern completed appeals and should not be read as the number of applications refused or as a forecast of future litigation.
Personal-licence enforcement was separately recorded. There were 337 surrendered personal licences, 19 revoked personal licences and seven forfeited personal licences in England and Wales in the year ending 31 March 2017. These are distinct recorded outcomes: surrender, revocation and forfeiture should not be combined into one category without changing the meaning of the source data.
The legacy 2007 bulletin recorded 570 completed appeals in magistrates courts and three completed judicial reviews in higher courts in the year ending 31 March 2007. Those court figures come from the older source and are not a current comparison with the 2017 application-appeal figures.
For a bar management team, the statistics point to several separate control areas: maintaining premises-licence conditions, preparing for review requests from multiple initiating groups, understanding the difference between interim and final measures, and keeping personal-licence responsibilities distinct from premises-level enforcement. The numbers show the scale and recorded forms of enforcement in specific England and Wales measurement periods; they do not predict the outcome of any individual licensing case.