The government has introduced various arrangements by way of Statutory Orders to provide for transitional arrangements from the existing legislation to the new provisions of the Act.
The main provisions allow for continuation rights and grandfather rights for existing operators and a fast track application procedure to convert existing permissions into relevant premises licences or permits.
Those rights have been defined as:
Continuation rights
This describes the right of existing operators to continue to be able to operate in business without interruption after 1 September 2007, even if their applications for the equivalent permission under the new Act has not been determined by that date. In general, to qualify for continuation rights, operators will need to have had a current permission on 31 August 2007, and have made advance applications for the equivalent permissions by the dates stipulated in the transitional arrangements.
Grandfather rights
This describes the right of operators with a premises based permission under the existing legislation to get that permission converted into the equivalent permission under the 2005 Act. The circumstances in which grandfather rights apply, and any exceptions are explained in more detail in guidance notes available below and also from the document produced by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) which is also available to view or download below.
To access further guidance on the transitional arrangements for individual types of premises and the necessary application forms and fees please click on the links to those documents shown below.
In addition, details of the chronology of the transitional arrangements for premises licences and permits are available on the link below.