Roger,

The idea of the PEL is that:

1) A place where the public go to be entertained (e.g. a concert hall) should be safe . . . and should be able to be safely evacuated should an emergency arrise.

2) "Public Entertainments" should not cause a nuisance to other people (e.g. through their noise).

Now I happen to think those are both reasonable objectives, and it's not unresonable that the owner of the venue (or organiser of the event when it's an "occasional" event) should have to pay the costs involved in issuing the licence.

I just believe that applying this licensing system to these sorts of activities is totally inappropriate. (Pubs have to meet certain minimum safety standards to obtain their "drink" licence, and folks can object to such a licence on "nuisance" grounds - THAT should be enough!!)

George