Dave? That was me with the 30 pubs. Even if the fee was £1,000 a pub that doesn't add up to a significant income stream for a town with a good few millions in its budget.

This isn't a question of public versus private - it's public at present, with magistrates doing the licencing. Public can be very cost efective indeed, just as private can mean ripping evewryone off (think of the contracts for not cleaning the hospitals properly). If there's any licensing to be done, some kind of public or voluntary sector makes more sense to me. But there are good ways of doing it and bad ways.