Having experienced the chaos in September 2009 first-hand, working with some of Scotland’s largest alcohol suppliers and sellers, WardblawG agrees with most of what Mr Johnston has to say and, so, would like to reinforce Tom’s comments and, indeed, add from its MD’s own personal experience of the gruelling inception of the Licensing (Scotland) Act 2005 in Scotland (the “Act”).

Commentators have and will continue to suggest improvements. But what this author would like to see are two main changes: first, a template training module accessible online for free, published by the Scottish government; and, second, the existence of a licensing board that heads up all the other licensing boards in Scotland which provides a real leadership role and which should, hopefully, stop major differences existing between, among other cities and towns, Glasgow and Edinburgh.