Is there a better way?

July 4, 2012

Paddy Whur looks at the frustration felt by a local authority when it was faced with its inability to defend its own decision to refuse the grant of a betting premises licence under the Gambling Act 2005.

We have recently been instructed to represent a London Borough to advise in relation to the appeal against a refusal to grant a Betting Premises Licence under the Gambling Act 2005.

The authority has been struggling to grapple with the permissive nature of the legislation when local people are being vocal against the grant of a licence.

The local authority had refused the application after receiving representations from the Police Service and a local Ward Councillor along with a petition containing 200 plus signatures from local people who did not want the betting shop to be granted in their locality.

The arguments raised by objectors were:

That they feared that the already high levels of crime in the area would be exacerbated by a further betting shop;
That there was a degree of problem caused outside betting premises by street drinkers and those who were smoking outside the betting shops already in existence in the Borough;
Littering outside the shops;
This would create a cluster of betting shops.

The Police objected and produced statistics showing that there had been a number of armed robberies and criminal damage to machines in the existing betting shops. The Authority refused the application for the grant of the premises licence, having heard from the operator and objectors, as it did not feel the application was "reasonably consistent" with the crime and disorder licensing objective. A significant amount of evidence was served by the Appellant to support their contention that the decision below was wrong and should be overturned on appeal, in line with the Hope and Glory decision.

The legislation is particularly liberal in that Section 153 of the Gambling Act 2005, under the Title "Principles to be Applied", states that local authorities should "aim to permit" the grant of a licence unless one of the statutory grounds is evidenced to engage their discretion to refuse. Section 153 states that:

"In exercising their functions under this part a Licensing Authority shall aim to permit the use of the premises for gambling insofar as the Authority think it:-

(a) in accordance with any relevant code of practice under Section 24;

(b) in accordance with any relevant guidance issued by the Commission under Section 25;

(d) in accordance with the statement published by the Authority under Section 349."

It was accepted that there were no grounds to refuse under paras (a), (b), and (d).

The critical issue being the licensing objectives:

(a) preventing gambling from being a source of crime and disorder, being associated with crime or disorder or being used to support crime;

(b) ensuring that gambling is conducted in a fair and open way;

This is where the difficulties lie, in that, it is quite often the case that people are fearful of crime and disorder as a result of the betting shop being granted, but it is very difficult to prove that in cohesive terms to a licensing committee or appeal court. One of the major areas is whether the activities on the doorstep amount to a nuisance, or go as far as disorder. In the instant case in which we are advising, we felt that the issues exhibited did not go further than nuisance, into the requirement of disorder to support the refusal. Under the Licensing Act 2003, public nuisance is one of the licensing objectives which needs to be promoted. That is not the case in relation to betting/gambling applications, where disorder has to be proved to either allow for the refusal of a licence or the review of a licence, once it is in existence.

There was considerable frustration in the decision makers in the Borough in that they felt they were not supporting their Police Service and local people in compromising the appeal. However, when faced with a potential award of costs of £40-60,000 to pay for the QC-led appellant’s team and all of their witnesses; the Borough accepted our advice in compromising the appeal with additional conditions being attached to the premises licence.

The difficulty this brings about is that many London boroughs feel there are problems being occasioned by the increasing numbers of betting shops, quite often in clusters in areas of high footfall. There is a general feeling that the legislation gives them no teeth to deal with the increase in the number of betting shops and the negative impact that many councils feel this brings to areas of their authority.

It may well be that some authorities, in particular the London boroughs, will come together to lobby Government in relation to this particular issue. As far as back as 2008 the Labour Government published Fair Rules for Strong Communities. This promised new tough rules on alcohol, sex and gambling establishments.

We have seen changes to the alcohol regime with increased mandatory conditions, the return of alcohol licensing to the Home Office and the potential for Early Morning Restriction Orders and the Late Night Levy.

In relation to lap dancing premises we have seen them categorised as Sex Entertainment Venues and a whole new tier of licensing being brought in.

However, in relation to gambling licensing, nothing has changed. The report found that the DCMS would look further into how the licensing regime and the planning system could give local authorities sufficient powers to address issues of clusters of premises fundamentally altering the character of the neighbourhood and harming vulnerable people, but nothing has been done.

We will have to see whether the London boroughs can gather sufficient support to take this further and effect fundamental change to the legislation.

Paddy Woods is a partner at Woods Whur. He can be contacted on 0113 234 3055 or by This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..