Progress on clamping down on illegal gambling advertising

The gambling industry is a scourge on inner city communities, preying on vulnerable people and bleeding badly needed money out of some of the most marginalised individuals, families and communities in our city. We should have zero tolerance for the very lucrative gambling industry exploiting planning loopholes in order to freely advertise in the city. My motion to the Planning SPC makes important progress towards this.

Betting shops across the city have repeatedly exploited a planning loophole to freely and illegally advertise outside their shops. They will often erect banners outside their premises without the needed planning permission to encourage gambling around sports tournaments, knowing that if any complaint is made they will be given 4 weeks to remove the banner. Conveniently for them, the sports tournament will be over by then and the advertising will have already done its job, and its damage to the community, in that time.

Attached is the full report in response to my motion to the Council to crackdown on this common practice and close the loophole. I am pleased to see a positive response from the planning enforcement section and I hope that the relevant test case will be brought before the courts as soon as a betting shop decides to freely and illegally erect an advertising banner again.

Attachments

• Enforcement against illegal gambling advertising