The Licensing Committee agreed unanimously to commend the revised Statement of Gambling Policy to Full Council for adoption. The new policy removes the practice of writing to residents to inform them about licensing applications, but there were no other substantive changes to the previous policy.

Gambling Act 2005 - Adoption of Revised Gambling Policy

The Committee considered a report on the adoption of a revised gambling policy for the borough, as required under the Gambling Act 2005. The previous policy was adopted in 2021 and is available on the Council's website. The Act requires each local authority in England, Scotland and Wales to review its gambling policies every 3 years, to keep them up to date.

The Committee heard from Ian Andrews, Head of Trading Standards and Environmental Health Commercial Services, and Jane Dyer, the Licensing Manager, that the Council was obliged to review the Gambling Policy. He stated that:

This is something that we can't negotiate, it's something that we have to do once every three years, but we have sought to make changes which are going to put the policy in a strong position going forward.

Councillor Taggart Ryan, Cabinet Member for Community Safety and Enforcement, confirmed that the revised policy was substantially the same as the previous policy. He also confirmed that the Council was working on other schemes and strategies that would address concerns that residents had raised about gambling, that fell outside of the scope of the Gambling Act. He told the committee:

Most of the concern was about the minutia of managing disruption around premises and vulnerable people, which is what the scope of this exercise, this strategy is about.

...under Councillor Lollivar's portfolio, there is also the addiction strategy coming forward. Now, that will be looking at alcohol, drugs and gambling as problem behaviours in the health sense. So some of those concerns, I think, are probably better placed within that strategy rather than this one.

Councillor Sullivan asked how residents could report problems with gambling premises. Mr Andrews confirmed that the Council did not have a dedicated form for this purpose, but that residents could contact the Council through their usual channels.

Councillor Burke-McDonald expressed concern that the Committee had not been invited to offer substantive comment on the content of the policy during the consultation process. She asked whether the Act itself was likely to be reviewed, in light of the fact that:

...we have all these, we've plastered on football shirts, on advertisements, kids walking around with bet 365 or whoever.

Councillor Ryan suggested that the Act was likely to be reviewed soon, pointing to the Martyn's Law Bill¹ as evidence of the Government's commitment to strengthening legislation. He said that:

I think the Gambling Act is likely and the Licensing Act is likely to be amended quite shortly due to Martin's law coming through. So there will be more restrictions on premises that hold events.

Mr Andrews confirmed that the revised policy could be amended more frequently than every three years, should the need arise.