The following letter of mine was published in The Dorset Echo 9 December 2005.

If his comments reported in the Dorset Echo on Monday December 5 are anything to go by, perhaps Weymouth and Portland Borough Council's Licensing Committee Chairman, Mike Goodman would be well suited in Parliament? Referring to the early days of the Licensing Act, he said:. "I don't believe adults should be curtailed and I don't agree with curfews."

It would certainly appear that he and his committee do not agree with curtailing and placing curfews upon extended drinking hours, even when there are direct objections to this from close neighbours. Perhaps if he lived where some of these objectors do he may think differently.

However, in recent reports of licensing applications in these pages, I have see little reluctance on the part of this committee to eagerly curtail adults and place curfews upon some of their activities, even when no public objections are made to activities like playing darts - that are certainly less troublesome than drinking alcohol.

One example was when granting extended drinking hours for The New Inn in Easton. Despite valid local objections to this application. Councillor Goodman's committee placed curfews restricting live music and indoor sports to an 11pm finish (although no public objections or concerns to those activities were reported) but for some reason a curfew of midnight on the playing of recorded music!

I am sure that any neighbour disturbed by loud music from 11pm will take much consolation in that is only recorded music keeping them awake for that extra hour.

Perhaps councillor Goodman would now agree that whatever activities adults choose do on these premises and the times that these activities end are not really the business of his committee - unless there are specific and valid public objections made to these particular activities

Given Councillor Goodman's comments can I ask if we can now expect to see an end to these kind of automatic licensing conditions being imposed upon the activities of adults in applications or variations where there are no specific objections made to them?

And will a review now be undertaken of those curfews and curtailments that his committee has imposed upon these activities to date, in all cases where there were no specific public objections made to them and therefore no grounds under the four main objectives of The Licensing Act 2003 for the Licensing Committee to impose these curfews?

ENDS