Health, wellbeing and regeneration in coastal resorts

The night-time economy

Brighton and Hove has a thriving tourist economy. By night it is a popular destination for stag and hen parties and its restaurants, nightclubs and bars make up a bustling centre of entertainment. Pubs and clubs play an important role in our city’s culture and economy but alcohol is a factor in at least 40 per cent of violent crime ... Brighton and Hove is known as a good place to enjoy pubs and clubs but people want to be confident drunken behaviour won’t spoil their enjoyment.³⁴

Residents in Brighton and Hove also have a worse profile for alcohol-related harm than the national and regional averages. Compared with the England population, there are greater alcohol-specific mortality and hospital admission rates among men; among women, hospital admission rates are higher.35 Compared with regional averages, residents of Brighton and Hove have:

• greater alcohol-specific mortality, alcohol attributable mortality and mortality from chronic liver disease;
  
• been admitted to hospital more frequently due to alcohol-related harm or other alcohol-specific or alcohol-attributable reasons;
  
• committed more alcohol-related crimes, including violent crimes and sexual offences;
  
• more frequently made alcohol-related claims for incapacity benefits among working-age people.

As part of their ongoing work to manage the public health effects of alcohol use, Brighton and Hove City Council and the PCT conducted a Health Impact Assessment on the provisions for flexible alcohol licensing.³⁶ These provisions are contained in the Licensing Act 2003 and they enable premises to apply for a licence to serve alcohol at any time.³⁷

The HIA involved data analysis to look at health outcomes before and after the introduction of the Act and wide consultation.

Is there a discernible pattern before and after the introduction of the Act? Early results suggest that if knowledge of alcohol consumption is relevant to services, for example specialist health care treatments or hostels, data about alcohol consumption is perceived to be recorded well and may bear closer inspection. It is harder to draw conclusions about the health effects of the Act from data relating to services which deal with the indirect effects of the night-time economy such as street cleaning. The data analysis is ongoing. Results will be presented to Brighton and Hove later.

The HIA team consulted widely with residents, licensees, service providers and elected members. All stakeholder groups expressed concerns about antisocial behaviour, particularly the increase in antisocial behaviour since the introduction of flexible alcohol hours and the increase in the length of time over which such behaviour takes place. In addition, service providers were concerned about difficulties in managing alcohol-related antisocial behaviour. Residents, licensees and service providers were concerned about noise, in particular the level of noise in residential areas and the length of time during which that noise is generated (which carries on into the early morning) since the introduction of flexible alcohol hours. Residents described the impacts on their health and wellbeing arising from loss of sleep, inability to sleep and sleep deprivation as a result of disturbances due to noise and/or antisocial behaviour. Both residents and service providers were particularly concerned about the adverse effects of such disturbances on vulnerable groups in the community such as children, older people and families.

The city council as licensing authority intends to use the HIA to inform its statement of licensing policy. It needs to be careful as public health protection is not a statutory licensing objective; however, access to alcohol is dependent on licensing. The HIA would be used to inform other corporate strategies such as planning documents and guidance, the local transport plan and tourism strategy. It was proposed to report the study to the Licensing Committee so that licensing members would have the opportunity to comment, discuss and make recommendations that in turn may be used to inform licensing policy, including matters such as cumulative impact, special stress areas, dealing with off-licences and high-volume vertical drinking, current practices in terms of local crime prevention strategies and enforcement pathways, and ensuring community safety, particularly around licensed premises, late-night transport and large events.

Tackling alcohol issues is one of the PCT’s World Class Commissioning priorities and specifically reducing alcohol-related hospital admissions is a priority health outcome against which the PCT has committed to measure itself. This work is an important part of that overall approach and will inform the interventions that the PCT will be seeking to see implemented across the city with the support of local authority, private sector and voluntary sector colleagues.