Apply for a pavement licence

A pavement licence allows cafes, restaurants, pubs and other food and drink establishments to place furniture on the pavement for customers.

You need a pavement licence if your business sells food and/or drink and you wish to place removable furniture on part of the pavement for one or both of the following:

sell or serve food or drink supplied from, or in connection with, the relevant use of the premises
use by other persons for the purpose of consuming food or drink supplied from, or in connection with, the relevant use of the premises

'Relevant use' means:

use as a public house, wine bar or other drinking establishment, and/or
other use for the sale of food or drink for consumption on or off the premises

If you have a query about pavement licences, email licensing@rugby.gov.uk

How to apply

We recommend you talk to neighbouring businesses before you make a pavement licence application so your application can take into account any concerns about noise and/or nuisance.

A pavement licence only permits the placing of furniture on the highway. Other regulatory frameworks, such as alcohol licences and registration of a food business, still apply.

We grant new pavement licences for a maximum period of 12 months (or 24 months for the renewal of an existing licence).

The application fee of £60 must be paid before we process your application. You can pay your application fee by debit or credit card by calling the council's customer service centre on (01788) 533533 during office opening times (9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday).

You can download an application form, a guide to making your application and a template for the public notice of making your application:

Please note - all pavement licences include a 'smoke-free seating' condition and a 'no obstruction' condition.

The no obstruction condition aims to ensure furniture placed on the highway under the authority of a pavement licence does not:

prevent traffic, other than vehicular traffic, from entering the relevant highway at a place where such traffic could otherwise enter it, passing along the relevant highway or having normal access to premises adjoining the relevant highway
prevent any use of vehicles permitted by a pedestrian planning order or not prohibited by a traffic order
prevent statutory undertakers having access to any apparatus under, in, on or over the highway
prevent the operator of an electronic communications code network having access to any electronic communications apparatus installed for the purposes of the network either under, in, on or over the highway

What happens after you've applied?

Applications must be made subject to a public consultation period of 10 days.

The consultation period starts the day after you submit your application and does not include public holidays.

If we deem your application to be invalid or missing information, the consultation period starts the day after we deem your application to be valid.

The council must consult with Rugby's highways authority, Warwickshire County Council, on all applications.

When appropriate, we may also consult with the following agencies:

Warwickshire Police
Warwickshire Fire and Rescue Service
Rugby Borough Council's planning and environmental teams
parish and town councils