Mendip District Council is offering quick, cut-price 'Pavement Licences' for bars, restaurants and pubs serving food and drink al fresco, to help high streets recover post-lockdown.

Hospitality businesses keen to maximise capacity, while still observing social distancing guidelines, will now find it easier and cheaper to obtain permission to place tables and chairs on pavements outside their premises.

Pavement Licences are normally granted by Somerset County Council, as the Highways Authority. But the Government - in seeking to speed things up - temporarily transferred responsibility to distribute these licences to District Councils in Somerset, including Mendip.

The move reduces application periods for Pavement Licences by 50%, from 28 calendar days to 14 days (this includes a seven-day consultation, plus seven-day determination period by the local authority).

And there will be cut-price licences too, costing £100 each instead of close to £400.

Officers from Mendip have been working hard behind the scenes to ensure these licences can be processed without delay, now that legislation has been passed by Parliament (22 July, 2020).

Full details and online application can be found here: the Mendip site