A LATE-NIGHT levy on Southampton’s bars, pubs and clubs could be given the green light next week.

Councillors will decide next week whether to introduce annual charges of up to £4,440 for city bars and clubs open after midnight.

Council officers says the new levy will raise much-needed funds to help cover the cost of the city’s late-night economy.

But it has been fiercely opposed by a number of city bars and clubs, who have described it as another tax which will hit their trade.

As previously reported, plans for the levy surfaced last year, and would see venues operating after midnight pay an annual fee of between £299 and £4,400.

In a report which will be presented to the council’s licensing committee tomorrow, the council’s head of legal and democratic service, Richard Ivory, said: “The principle behind the council proposing the levy is that of the need to maintain, and hopefully increase, the range of measures including direct policing costs directly related to managing the antisocial aspects of the city’s night time economy cost and primarily alcohol consumption-related behaviour post midnight.

“It is abundantly clear that there is a significant cost, not solely police costs, in managing this.”

Funds raised through the levy would be shared between the police and the council, and would be spent on measures such as taxi marshalling, street pastors and the In Case of Emergency (ICE) bus, which helps revellers in need of help.

It is expected the charge would raise about £240,000 each year, with 70 per cent going to the police and 30 per cent to the council.

At the meeting tomorrow, licensing chiefs will consider the results of consultation which saw ten residents support the levy and 20 businesses object to it.

They will then decide whether to recommend passing the levy on to the full council to approve at a meeting on September 17.

One of the licensees who has opposed the scheme, Guy Benfield from Talking Heads, said: “It is just another tax, which is all very well for big multinational companies but not for smaller businesses.

“I think it should be a zone that should be introduced in certain areas, such as Bedford Place and the High Street, but it shouldn’t be a catch-all policy.”

If they vote to introduce the levy, it would come into effect on April 1, 2015.

The new scheme would then be reviewed in 2017.