18 nonths ago I got dragged into a meeting between our landlord and and council licencing office. It turned out that when the 2003 licencing act came in the brewery had automatically applied for licences with very retrictive hours. Once this happens it is difficult to change because it gives an opportunity for those nearby to object.

What amaxed me was that the licencing department had approved whatever was applied for initially and there had been no objections. If at that stage the pub had applied for live music 24 hours a day it would have got it.

From what I remember there is no extra cost for live music on the licence. There is a cost for changing a licence and because the process encourages objectors the pub can end up with less than it has already -- risky.

I suspect as a breed landlords are not very good with licencing departments and suffer as a result.

The biggest problem for sessions and singarounds in pubs is that if you play one or more melodies or arrangements whose author has licenced it through PRS there is a £10 (inc VAT) fee per session to them - this makes local authority licences relatively cheap. Its difficult to believe a co-operative of composers has come up with such a bar to the humble singaround or session.