That sounds good.

Perhaps you could point her to Weymouth and Portland Borough Council and they can work together on finding a solution. It will help when the officers state that every other LA is using the same interpretation. My Council have gotten themselves into rather mess with this interpretaion, and this may help us all, if your Council can see the mess they are getting into.

However, it must be recognised that the Council turning a 'blind eye', to the Palm session or any other is NOT and has never been an option...........(even if they have done it).

Even if they should now insist on a PEL for the Palm Tree, and it sounds like they are going to (and I am not sure why), the Council do not have to charge a fee. But they can certainly carry on enforcing the current legislation for conventional public entertainment and they can do this at the same time as enabling sessions. They just have to investigate and find a way that these activities are NOT considered by your Council, as the local licensing authority, as licensable public entertainments.

Until they can find a way to do this (and it will take a long time) - they should allow the status quo and the sessions, to continue. There is little point in them finding a way and finding that there are no sessions left to enable.

I think the larger question however, is who is in charge? The elected members of your Council - or their paid employees. If the leader of your Council is in agreement with you - then she will have to make sure her officers do as the elected members instruct them to, and find a way to enable these activities now. It now becomes her problem to do this.

You can tell her this when she comes back to you and tells you how difficult it is and how sorry she is that she cannot help. As I am sure she will...Sorry to sound so downbeat, but there have be so many false dawns.