The Cabinet Member – Regeneration and Economic Development presented a report,  seeking approval of the Council’s Statement of Licensing Principles for gambling premises to cover the period 2016-2019, a draft of which was attached at Appendix A to the report.

The report gave some background information, and the Assistant Chief Executive – Legal and Regulatory Services, shared information with Members regarding this, following which, he explained that the Statement of Licensing principles had been re-drafted to reflect changes to the Fifth Edition of the Guidance published by the Gambling Commission, as well as an update to the Council’s proposed corporate priorities. In addition, there were minor updates to the policies relating to motorway service area premises etc, at Section 3.1 of the report, and to provisional applications which were set out in Section 3.9.1 of the report.

In addition, an Officer review of current premises and complaints was undertaken to establish if there were any local or area-based concerns which would merit a change of policy.  Seven complaints were received in the three year period preceding the review, the majority of which related to the siting of machines in non-authorised premises, but no trends or area specific concerns had been identified. As a result, no major policy changes were proposed at this time, but the authority may review its Gambling Policy at any time should local circumstances change.

The Assistant Chief Executive – Legal and Regulatory Services, then referred to the sub-paragraph entitled Social Responsibility (ie para 4.3), and the fact that the Gambling Commission was responsible for publishing the general licence conditions and codes of practice, and that certain new conditions had been introduced, the majority of which came into effect in May 2015, with further provisions coming into effect in April 2016. These related to licensees being required to assess the local risks to the licensing objectives posed by the provision of gambling facilities at each of their premises, and to have policies, procedures and control measures in place to mitigate those risks.  The proposed amendments were primarily set out in Section 3 of Appendix A, and identified the issues which the Council would expect operators to address within appropriate risk assessments undertaken.

In addition, he explained that the responses from the consultation were as detailed in paragraphs 4.4 of the report.

These were from The Campaign for Fairer Gambling (CFG), who had proposed that the maximum stake be reduced to £2 along with other measures to mitigate problem gambling.

A summary of the concerns forwarded to the Council were attached at Appendix B to the report, whilst Appendix C contained a response from Grosschalks Solicitors, who had submitted a response on behalf of the Association of British Bookmakers (ABB).

This response raised a number of points relating to the draft statement which were dealt with both in the report and the Draft Statement of Principles.

A Member referred to page 17 of the report, and was aware that 17 betting shops within BCBC were offering support to greater powers of control to be introduced for fairer betting to be better achieved. She asked if the terms of the Policy accounted for this.

The Assistant Chief Executive – Legal and Regulatory Services, confirmed that this was not a matter for the Policy, as it fell outside the statutory framework of this. He added however, that the Member could express her view to the Licensing Committee, who in turn could give consideration to this, and advise Council of their observations or recommendations in respect of this.

A Member referred to page 32 of the Draft Statement of Principles, and noted half way down this page, that the Licensing Authority would investigate complaints made to it against licensed premises in relation to matters regarding the licensing objectives, for which it has responsibility. He noted from the covering report however, that few such complaints had been made ie a total of 7.

The Assistant Chief Executive – Legal and Regulatory Services confirmed that in all probability there were more complaints than this made, but these were made to the premises in question rather than to the local authority (then possibly referred on to the Licensing Committee), as the majority of complaints were usually minor in their nature and able to be resolved between the complainant and the proprietor of the premises the complaint was made against.

RESOLVED:                     (1)   That Council approved the publication of the Statement of Licensing Principles for gambling premises as attached at Appendix A to the report.

                                          (2)  That Council also approved the issuing of the statutory notice of publication, which would be made available on the Council’s website, at County Borough libraries and be placed on the Council’s public notice board.