Licensing policy in Reading remains mostly unchanged despite anticipation of a challenging transformation in retail over the next few years.

Reading Borough Council’s (RBC) licensing policy and cumulative impact assessment (CIA) review was approved at Tuesday evening's full council without opposition.

Changes to the policies were made at the licensing committee, on September 25.

Councillor Page, deputy leader, said: "The policy has served us well and we have not needed to make too many changes.

“I hope that this new policy will stand us in good stead for the next few years.”

However, he added: "Licensing and planning are going to have real challenges in the next few years with the change of retail.

"Planning and licensing systems, nationally, are based on fixed usage. Shopping and retail is going to be much more flexible in the future.

The policies were approved at Tuesday evening’s full council meeting, without objection, and have received support from Thames Valley Police, the University of Reading.

Councillor Skeats, leader of Reading Conservatives, said: “The CIA has been in place for some time and it’s been very successful. We are fully in support of this.

“I’ve just come down from Hull. They have had a very robust discussion about the cumulative impact policy and the problems its had and what they are having to deal with there.

“Considering what we have been doing here, it was good to see another authority working on it.”

The licensing policy and cumulative impact policy outline the council’s approach to enforcement, regulation of alcohol, food and entertainment, collection of fees and the impact of Reading’s night time economy.

Reading Borough Council has a statutory responsibility to review its licensing policy every five years.

Developer Moorgarth’s application for a mixed-use urban market outside Broad Street Mall was rejected by RBC’s planning committee in July for having too many drinking establishments.

Cllr Page said: “Getting that balance right is a challenge for all of us. We want to ensure that the health of Reading’s day and night time economy is protected and enhanced.”

The amendments made by licensing committee include changing the cut-off time for when applications are likely to be objected to on cumulative impact grounds from 11pm to 12am.

This offers more hope of success to license applicants that want to close their business at midnight.

An online ‘give us your views’ consultation received responses from a resident, licence holder and councillor.

Resident David Fenemore was concerned about the consistency of the policy while licence holder Wasaf Butt hoped his restaurant business would not suffer because of problems caused by pubs and clubs.

Councillor Karen Rowland set out her belief that the CIA should extend to Oxford Road.