Sunderland City Council opens consultation on gambling policy
Residents and business owners have two weeks to respond.
UK.- Sunderland City Council has begun a consultation on its new policy for gambling outlets and the granting of permits and licences. Residents and businesses have two weeks to provide input by email via [email protected].
There are 35 licensed gambling premises in the city, including 22 high-street betting shops. Since the Statement of Principles was last updated in 2022, four new premises licences have been granted, three of them due to relocations, with only one being an entirely new licence. Five premises closed in the same period.
The council says the new policy aims to ensure gambling outlets conduct fair and legal operations and protect minors.
Councillor Jill Fletcher, the chair of Sunderland City Council’s Licensing Committee, said: “We always want to hear the views of residents and this regulation of gambling premises is no exception. The views we receive can help shape and regulate what happens over the next three years.”
She added: “The principles guide the policy to help ensure that any gambling is not a source of crime or disorder, it is conducted in a fair and open way, and that children and other vulnerable persons are protected from harm or exploitation.”
The British Gambling Commission recently published the first-year statistics and datasets from the new Gambling Survey for Great Britain (GSGB). The survey for 2023 found that 48 per cent of adults and 52 per cent of men had participated in some form of gambling in the past 4 weeks.
The rate of participation fell to 27 per cent when lottery draws were excluded. Some 41 per cent of adults who gambled in the past 12 months rated the last time they gambled positively, while 21 per cent gave a negative score and 37 per cent gave a neutral score. The most common reasons for adults to participate in gambling were the chance of winning big money (86 per cent) because gambling is fun (70 per cent) to make money (58 per cent) and because it was exciting (55 per cent).
