The recent application from Merkur Slots for a gambling licence to operate in Spalding prompted a lot of questions from readers about how this process works. We put them to the council’s public protection team…
Unlike for other sectors, the law – specifically the Gambling Act 2005 – dictates that there should be an ‘aim to permit’ an application for a licence.
Applicants have to get accreditation from the Gambling Commission and, once they have this, there’s an assumption that councils will say yes to them.
If there are no objections, applications pass with no hearing – and conditions can be placed on the licence but these have to be with a view to saying ‘yes’.
South Holland District Council’s head of public protection said: “Again, conditions have to be permissive, they have to be around allowing premises to operate for gambling activity.
“They have to be appropriate to what the representations were. If the representations are around crime and disorder the conditions have to be relevant to…
