York Guides

Simon McGee
Political Editor (Yorkshire Post)
THOUSANDS of pubs and restaurants across Yorkshire are putting their businesses at risk because so few are on course to meet the imminent deadline to trade under the Government's controversial new licensing laws.

The regulations, which also pave the way for 24-hour drinking, require licensees to reapply by Saturday if they want to guarantee retaining present licence conditions.
The Department of Culture, Media and Sport's (DCMS) latest national survey of licence applications suggested that more than six months into the transition period between the licensing regimes only half of relev-ant businesses have applied.
It has led the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) to brand the new licensing system a "shambles" and to claim Ministers ignored warnings that it would pen-alise independent traders.
The FSB today says 58 per cent of the 180,000 licence holders in England and Wales have not submitted renewal applications.
But the picture in Yorkshire is even less promising.
Leeds City Council has revealed that barely a quarter of its premises had applied so far, prompting city leaders to dub the situation a "crisis in the making".
Sheffield has received only 35 per cent of due licence applications and Hull 30 per cent.
But York bucked the trend, having received them for over 66 per cent of premises.
Missing the deadline will leave existing licence holders having to apply as if for the first time, forcing them to spend as much as one or two months ironing out potential application problems or objections.
A DCMS spokesperson said applications had risen from 33 per cent two weeks ago to 51 per cent, showing that they were coming in "increasingly rapidly".
But she accepted that was still not enough and that the Department was still urging people to send their forms in as soon as possible.
Ministers have come in for extensive criticism from opp-osition politicians for turning the licensing system into a "bureaucratic nightmare".
Lack of awareness among licensees that all of them – not just those seeking later opening hours – have to re-apply, the higher cost of new licences and the complexity of official forms have been given as reasons for the low number of applications over the last six months.
Shadow Culture Secretary Theresa May told the Yorkshire Post: "The application form has gone from two pages to 26 pages, with 98 pages of explanatory notes.
"Not only have licensees been unable to cope with the complexity of the new law but now local authorities are going to be unable to cope with the huge deluge of applications they're going to get in the closing days.
"There's simply no way the Government are going to get anywhere near a full take-up. Thousands of businesses in Yorkshire could fall foul of this chaos and confusion."
FSB police chairman John Walker said: "We have some sympathy with local authorities. The failure of businesses to renew their licences is a time-bomb of the Government's making, which we warned was set to explode this summer.
"Ministers under-estimated the vast array of firms that come under the new regime, including the very many that make just a tiny proportion of their profits from alcohol."
Concerned town halls responsible for processing applications have reported a rapid increase in the number of applications submitted in recent days, putting major strains on licensing departments to process them, but said the overall figure remained relatively low.
Leeds Council has received 800 applications from the city's 3,000 licensed businesses.
Its leader Mark Harris said: "We appear to have a crisis in the making in terms of the number of licences we have to deal with before the deadline on August 6.
"Leeds City Council has continuously urged licensees to submit their applications in plenty of time as they run the risk of losing their licence when the new law comes into force in November.
"It is not an ideal situation for the council to be in to have to deal with this many applications at this late stage. However, I would urge anyone who has not submitted their forms to do so immediately."
At last week's count Shef-field had received only 701 forms from 2,000 businesses, and in Hull 300 applications had been received from the city's 1,000 premises.
York, on the other hand, had received 477 applications from 720 businesses.