Licensing and street trading
We are responsible for the control and licensing of a wide range of activities.
Any individual or organisation involved in supplying alcohol, providing regulated entertainment, or selling late night refreshment, either on a temporary or permanent basis, must be authorised to do so by the local authority.
We are responsible for licensing animal boarding establishments, riding establishments, dog breeding establishments, dangerous wild animals, pet shops and zoos.
Anyone who manufactures or stores explosives (including shops selling fireworks) must either be registered with their local authority or licensed by the Health & Safety Executive.
Find out how to apply for premises licences for betting shops, race tracks and sports grounds, bingo clubs, and amusement arcades, as well as details on how to obtain a permit for gaming machines in members clubs and licensed premises, and how to register a local society to promote a small lottery.
We are responsible for licensing premises for a wide range of functions, including auction rooms, venues for marriage and civil partnership ceremonies, sale of non-medicinal poisons, sports grounds and caravan sites.
We register scrap metal dealers and motor salvage operators operating within the Lambeth area. This includes scrap metal yards, itinerant scrap metal collectors, vehicle breakers, and businesses repairing written-off vehicles for resale.
Any premises being used as a sex shop, sex cinema, or sex encounter premises must be licensed by the council.
We issue licences to skip companies to deposit skips. We also issue licences for erecting scaffolding, hoarding and fencing, for excavating the footway or carriageway, for storing building materials, and for depositing portable cabins and containers.
We issue licences for massage and special treatment premises. Special treatments include UV tanning, sauna, waxing, electrolysis, cosmetic piercing, acupuncture and tattooing.
As well as regulating the markets, we also issue shop front licences and tables and chairs licences and tackle the problem of vehicles for sale on the highway. House to house and street collection licences are issued by the Metropolitan Police.
This page lists many of the activities for which a licence, permit or registration must be obtained from Lambeth Council, and provides links for further information on several types of licence issued by other bodies.