Wakefield city centre store wins alcohol licence despite street-drinking fears

Homemart, which opened on Kirkgate in Wakefield in November, was denied an alcohol licence by Wakefield Council before Christmas.

Now store bosses have been given the green light after they promised to insist that any shopper buying alcohol must spend at least £5 on other items, excluding tobacco.

They claimed the conditions they were volunteering were the most stringent for any West Yorkshire shop.

Homemart’s immediate neighbours, Shooter’s Pool Bar, and local councillors for the city centre remained opposed to the plan but their objections were overruled.

Speaking at a hearing this week, Homemart representative Nick Semper said the company had a “proven track record” of running stores responsibly elsewhere in the UK.

The Wakefield store has been allowed to sell alcohol for the last six weeks as a result of a series of temporary licences granted consecutively by the council.

The £5 minimum spend condition has been in place during that time, alongside other rules banning the sale of single cans and dictating that no beer above 6.5 per cent alcohol volume is available.

Mr Semper said the store has had “zero issues, zero reports, zero attendances and zero interventions from the police or any other responsible authority” during that time.

He added: “What anti-social street drinker of limited means is going to purchase £5 of goods that they do not want, each and every time they want to make a purchase of alcohol?”