Extended hours during Edinburgh Festival to be considered by councillors

Edinburgh councillors are to consider allowing city venues to lengthen their opening time by two hours during the summer festival.

A report by officers going before the city’s licensing board on Monday will ask councillors to sign off on the extended hours between August 7 and August 31.

It states that the extension would only automatically apply to licensed premises which have detailed in their operating plans that they wish to trade late during the festival.

It continues to state that businesses which do not have such details in their operating plans would need to apply to the licensing board to open late during that time.

The city has historically allowed venues to open late during the festival, which sees substantial numbers of visitors drawn in to the city.

The report from officers states: “The licensing board recognises that during certain periods further extensions of the terminal hour for licensed premises would be appropriate.

“Accordingly, during the period of the Edinburgh Festival and Fringe the terminal hour extensions are set from year to year.

“A two-hour extension to the usual terminal hour of licensed premises is regarded as acceptable in the normal course of events.”

Edinburgh is set to face an earlier run of late-hours trading in June after the licensing board authorised venues showing live sport to screen any World Cup matches they wish.

With the tournament in North America, some games are set to start as late as 5am UK time, though Scotland’s latest start in the group stage is 2am.

The board elected to allow venues which have a permanent premises licence, serve alcohol and have live television in their operating plan to take part.

Venues will be expected to notify the council about their intention to stay open late, and they will also be encouraged to be mindful of their own security, stewarding and ticketing requirements.

They will be able to stay open until 30 minutes after a match ends, though the serving of alcohol will have to conclude when the match being played comes to a close.