Running a sex shop in Aldershot or Farnborough could get cheaper next year.

The cost of renewing the annual licence for the area’s two sex shops could become more than two-thirds cheaper from April 1 2009.

Rushmoor Borough Council proposed cutting the fee from £6,230 to £2,000 after sex shop company Darker Enterprises Ltd asked it to review the figure.

Darker Enterprises, which runs a sex shop in High Street, Aldershot, pointed to cuts in the licence fee for next year other councils have made. For example Leeds City Council has cut its licence fee from £11,141 to £3,271.

However, some councillors responded by saying there should be no sex shops in the borough.

Tory Cllr David Welch said: “We have two sex shops in the borough which is two too many.”

Conservative colleague Cllr Alan Ferrier added: “I was chairman of the health committee when the first sex shop applied for a licence and it was turned down then. I’m sorry to say they applied again later and got in. If news of this gets out people will start objecting right away.”

Colin Mason, director of Darker Enterprises, called their views “personal opinion”.

He said: “I’m not a smoker but there are shops selling cigarettes everywhere. If it’s not illegal I say live and let live.”

In a letter to the council dated October 8, Mr Mason said the law says an applicant for a licence for renewal shall pay ‘a reasonable fee’ for it.
 
He said: “The fee is determined by the amount of work involved by the council, which is much more for an initial application than a renewal.

“As far as we can see a renewal is just a rubber stamp.”

His letters also mentioned Kettering Borough Council in Northamptonshire slashed its fee from £2,900 to £270.

Mr Mason says he does not know why the costs vary so greatly between councils and that it is ultimately up to them to decide what a “reasonable fee” is.

Rushmoor Borough Council also proposed increasing the first-time application for a licence from £6,230 to £6,490.

The proposed cut went before a meeting of the council licensing committee on November 3.

Councillors at the meeting said both the current fee and the proposed cut seemed arbitrary in light of the differences between what councils charge for sex shop licences.

The committee resolved to investigate further and make a decision at its next meeting in February.