Number of booze licence applications drops in East Devon

The number of bids being put in by venues and temporary events to serve alcohol in East Devon has dropped by around 30 in just a year.

Any business serving alcohol needs to apply for a licence from their respective council, and the number of applications can be a barometer for the health of the hospitality market.
East Devon District Council’s licensing and enforcement committee heard that in the last three months of 2025, its team dealt with 154 applications.
Those include new applications, variations of existing ones, transfers and temporary events.
But looking at data for the same period in 2024, the figure was 184 applications, showing a drop of 30 – equivalent to 16 per cent – in the most up-to-date numbers.
The figures potentially point to the challenging environment many hospitality businesses find themselves in, with many highlighting possible strain from the changes to business rates.
These include changes to reliefs for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses, as well as a revaluation, which could push some businesses into paying business rates for the first time, or crank up the bills for those already on the hook for it.
The council’s data presented to the committee did not break down the 154 figure, so it could be that there are simply fewer temporary events, or perhaps organisers of prospective events hadn’t submitted their applications yet.
Philippa Norsworthy, licensing manager at East Devon, said her team was busy with licences for specific, large annual events.
“Typically we get a large amount of applications for time-limited premises for summer events so we are very busy with those,” she said.
Those events include Sidmouth Folk Festival, Exmouth Pride and Gate to Plate.
The committee heard the licensing team at East Devon would now be extremely busy given two experienced members of its team would be leaving in February, with one taking early retirement and another jumping ship to Mid Devon District Council.
“We are losing two very experienced licensing officers in very quick succession,” Ms Norsworthy added.
Ms Norsworthy said that could make it more challenging to conduct some of its work.
“We will have to manage without the two post for, hopefully, only a limited period of time, but it will mean other officers will have to pick up some extra work,” she said.
“We have provision for overtime and I will come and do more licensing officer work, but nobody will be left to struggle and we will pull together.
“But we will have to cut back on proactive visits, so we won’t be able to say ‘this week we’ll concentrate on Axminster and conduct licensing checks’, for instance.
“We won’t be able to do that as we won’t have the resources.”
Ms Norsworthy said she had secured approval to hire the full-time role but was awaiting approval to try and fill the part-time one.