Residents raise concerns over new gambling licensing legislation
The local authority say that many of the problems people are concerned about are out of their control as it's issue that lies with central government.
CONCERNS about gambling have been raised by local people – in response to a consultation on new gambling licensing legislation for the area.
Councillors have been told that many of the problems people worry about are not within the power of the local council – but relate to Government legislation.
Many of the concerns raised include the difficulties people can get into by gambling and its addictive nature for some.
Dorset Council’s licensing committee heard on Thursday that talks were already taking place with North Dorset MP, Simon Hoare over problem gambling for young people. A meeting is also being arranged to talk about Government gambling legislation with West Dorset MP Chris Loder.
Weymouth councillor Brian Heatley told the committee that he had a great deal of sympathy with the concerns raised by local people in response to the consultation, but said that the power to improve the situation lay with the Government.
Dorchester councillor David Taylor asked for committee chairman Emma Parker to raise the concerns with local MPs.
She said that she would do that but said that from the council’s perspective the authority was very restricted about what it could do and was mainly limited to licensing premises and inspection to ensure the rules were being followed.
She said that a special event had been planned by the council to raise awareness of the problems gambling can cause and where help could be found but it had to be cancelled because of the pandemic although ways of offering online advice and of raising awareness was being considered.
Among the public comments were concerns that gambling can be addictive and of concern to vulnerable people and children with a request to keep all forms of gambling away from family settings.
Said one comment on the consultation: “The sole purpose of gambling commercially is to extract money from the poor and gullible, and pass it to the wealthy…Many are based in tax havens, or owned by anonymous persons based in tax havens.”
In her comments Laura Baxter claimed that gambling is a growing social problem, which, she said suggested that policies to date are not working effectively enough.
“While statements like ‘protecting children and vulnerable adults’ are admirable, we need to ask whether current guidelines achieve that and understand and address the levels of existing failures. Moderate gambling can be fun. Addictive gambling is not. The key here is that gambling is highly addictive. It is a form of escapism, similar to drinking. As a society we should be better at communicating the dangers of addiction…
“It is not enough to say they raise money for charity or employ a lot of people. They also cause misery, poverty, crime and future social problems for too many people. Policies need to be tightened, loopholes closed, proper protection offered,” she said in her submission.
By Trevor Bevins, Local Democracy Reporter