“…While there has been much public debate about the potential for minimum unit pricing of alcohol to address affordability in the UK [16,17], there has also been renewed interest in local approaches to the provision of premises licences for the sale of alcohol as a means to control availability [18,19,20,21]. There is consistent evidence suggesting an association between increased availability of alcohol, including the number and proximity of alcohol outlets in an area, and higher rates of consumption and associated alcohol-related harms [22,23,24,25], including some studies from Scotland [26,27]. However, the extent to which this association reflects a causal relationship and, if so, the mechanisms by which effects are exerted, remains the subject of study, since much of the research is cross-sectional and the validity of measures of the availability of alcohol premises uncertain [25,28,29,30,31,32].…”