OPPONENTS of a late licence at York's Barbican Centre are throwing in the towel because of fears they could be left facing a massive bill for costs.

Magistrates are due to hear an appeal next month against City of York Council's decision last summer to grant prospective centre operators Absolute Leisure (AL) a licence to serve alcohol in the refurbished complex until 2am.

But now the Save Our Barbican (SOB) campaign group is writing to scores of local residents, urging them to withdraw their appeal.

It says AL's commercial rival, Luminar Leisure, is no longer providing SOB with indemnification for its legal costs, and the group does not have the resources to cover any costs awarded against it.

"This means that should we lose the substantive appeal... the magistrates could award costs against the persons who appealed," it said in a letter to residents.

SOB spokesman Ernie Dickinson today bitterly attacked the new licensing system, asking: "What price justice?"

He claimed that when the legislation was drafted by the Government, councils should not have been allowed to consider licence applications for premises which they owned, or in which they had a financial interest. "Such applications should still have been considered by independent magistrates," he said.

He said it was wrong and unfair that when residents wanted to challenge a council decision, they could be left facing substantial costs. He claimed that issues raised by the Barbican licence wrangle could be replicated at hundreds of council-owned leisure centres across Britain.

Local protesters had been planning to claim at the appeal hearing that the authority was biased because of its financial interest in the centre, which has since been handed over to AL. The council has vigorously denied this, saying that its licensing sub-committee acted completely independently.

Selby MP John Grogan, a strong supporter of the changes in licensing, said today the Government had set up a review committee to examine how the Licensing Act was working.

He said the Barbican raised issues of wider national importance, and he would be writing to the committee drawing its attention to what had happened in York.

AL managing director Tony Knox said that World Snooker and the organisers of the annual carol concert already wanted to rebook their events for this year after the success of events in 2005.

"Anything that prevents further delay to the refurbishment programme is good news," he said. "In an ideal world we would like to have the centre refurbished and reopened for the back end of 2006."

As reported yesterday, the council's licensing committee is due to meet on January 30 to consider a separate application by AL for changes to the licence for the existing premises, allowing alcohol to be served until 2am.

:: Price of an appeal

LICENSING chief John Lacy warned last autumn that residents appealing against late licence decisions risked having to pay costs running into thousands of pounds.

Mr Lacy, the council's temporary licensing manager, spoke out after a resident appealed against a decision to grant a late licence for a city centre pub. Magistrates refused an application for costs against the resident by the pub and the council, but the pub's solicitor warned that this did not set a precedent, with each future case being decided on its merits.

Mr Lacy said he wanted people to be aware of the "real risk" that they might have to pay thousands of pounds in costs if they took an appeal to the courts.

A leading York solicitor said today that for a full day's appeal hearing, the costs for a top lawyer representing the licensee could run to as much as £5,000.

Updated: 10:16 Friday, January 20, 2006