Give councils power to ban bookies, says MP Tom Watson
Councils must be given powers to ban betting shops from opening in town centres, MP Tom Watson has said.
Mr Watson, who represents West Bromwich East, is hoping to get cross-party support for his call because the Liberal Democrats adopted a similar policy at their party conference.
In a motion laid down in Parliament, Mr Watson says he wants planning laws changed to allow councils to put in restrictions.
Currently, betting shops are classed in the same category as banks and building societies, meaning that in some cases they can be opened without planning consent for a change of use.
Mr Watson is calling on the Government to place betting shops in a new separate planning use class, allowing local authority planning committees to control them and to amend the Gambling Act to allow council licensing committees to take into account the 'cumulative impact of a proliferation of gambling activities when considering applications'.
He has also been campaigning against fixed-odds betting terminals, which critics have dubbed the 'crack cocaine of gambling' because they allow people to lose enormous sums of money on high-speed casino games such as roulette.
Sources in the Labour party have indicated that opposition leader Ed Miliband is likely to adopt Mr Watson's stance even though a vote taken in Parliament at the start of the month saw calls to restrict the amount that can be gambled rejected by MPs.
Mr Watson said: "This motion offers another solution by giving powers to local authorities to deal with the menance of fixed-odds betting terminals.
"A similar policy was adopted by the Lib Dems at a recent conference and I hope they will feel they can support it."
Betting shops are springing up in high streets all over the West Midlands.
Most of the revenue from betting shops on high streets now comes from high stakes gambling machines rather than from betting on horses or dogs.
According to Mr Watson's motion, the Government's own review of high streets, led by TV retail guru Mary Portas, has described gaming outlets as a 'blight' on the high street, creating 'unsightly' gambling clusters.
