North Wiltshire District Council is still yet to receive applications from around 200 of the 500 licensed businesses in the area.

Paul Langcaster, spokesman for the council, said although more and more were arriving every day, just 259 premises and 39 clubs had applied for new licenses.

He said: "As you might expect the licensing team has now been deluged with licensing applications and is working flat out to process them."

In Swindon, 280 businesses have not yet reapplied and are at risk of missing this Saturday's deadline.

Those who miss the first deadline will have lost their historic grandfather rights to a licence and will have to process an entirely new application.

Unlike a reapplication, this is vulnerable to being rejected if objections are received.

Any business which fails to get its new application in by November 24 will be breaking the law.