Sadiq Khan was being disingenuous when he claims Wandsworth Council’s decision to grant a licence to Coral on Mitcham Road shows it is not listening to residents (“Twenty Third Betting Shop Set To Open In Tooting”).
As he well knows, the last Labour government passed a law that makes it almost impossible for local councils to turn down licensing applications for betting shops. It was the same Labour government that enabled betting shops to install fixed odds betting terminals and then capped the number in each outlet to four, ensuring that chains try to open multiple shops in town centres.
Wandsworth Council is trying to take action through planning law to stop an over concentration of betting shops in town centres. Yet to tackle the oversupply of betting shops through licensing law would require a reversal of the last Labour government’s national legislation.
Mr Khan has form in this area of course. He sat in a cabinet that heftily increased the tax on beer sold in pubs and now wonders why so many of them find it harder to make ends meet.
He didn’t react when the Prince of Wales in Summerstown was turned into a Tesco but belatedly leapt on the bandwagon to save The Wheatsheaf in Tooting Bec.
Likewise, it was only when anti-betting shop campaigners criticised him for not even submitting a response to earlier applications that he belatedly woke up to this issue and is now trying to make political capital out of it.
Suzanne Moezzi;
Tooting Bec
- Send your letters to: letters@wandsworthguardian.co.uk
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