FTB’s Grant appears for conservation trust at Jermyn Street SEV licence hearing

Gary Grant of Francis Taylor Building represented the St James’s Conservation Trust at a heavily contested hearing of an application for a sexual entertainment venue (SEV) licence in London’s historic Jermyn Street.

The hearing before Westminster City Council’s licensing sub-committee took place on 2 March.

The applicant argued that sexual entertainment would form only a "small and ancillary" element to the entertainment to be provided at an upmarket private members’ club being developed at 91 Jermyn Street in the St James’s area of the capital. The applicant is also said to have indicated: “there would also be the ability to pay for nude dances in the meeting rooms if members so wished”.

Residents, led by the Trust, together with the responsible authorities, opposed the application on the principal grounds that the character of the locality and the uses to which other venues in the vicinity were put made the granting of an SEV licence in Jermyn Street inappropriate.

This was despite the fact that of the 25 SEV licences deemed to be the maximum number appropriate in Westminster, only 21 had so far been granted.

Residents also highlighted how:

• Jermyn Street was a prestigious street of national importance and international renown, amongst other things hosting a higher number of Royal Warrant holders than any other street in the UK.
• Opposite 91 Jermyn Street was Sir Christopher Wren’s historic St James’s Church, which still acted as a modern-day focal point for the community of St James’s.
• There were some 61 residential addresses within a 75m circumference around the proposed venue.
• With Gaslight Gentleman’s Club so close by there was an unacceptable risk of “clustering” should a further SEV licence be granted in this location. A similar application for an SEV in this location had previously been refused in 2014.

The licensing sub-committee refused the application on the basis of the character of the locality and the uses to which other venues in the vicinity were put.

Cllr Melvyn Caplan, who chaired the hearing, said Jermyn Street “was always likely to be an inappropriate location”.