Former gambling addict Matt Smith from BetKnowMore<\/p>\n
COUNCILLORS and charities have said the government must change the law to stop gambling venues proliferating on the borough\u2019s high streets.<\/p>\n
Town Hall chiefs want new planning powers to reject applications for new betting shops and fruit machine casinos.<\/p>\n
The current legislation for local authorities has an \u201caim to permit\u201d approach.<\/p>\n
Now, \u00a3250,000 has been given to charities and councils to combat gambling-related harm, including domestic violence, addiction, and mental health problems.<\/p>\n
The money comes from the Greo Evidence Centre and the project will be led by mental health charity Mind in Haringey.<\/p>\n
The coalition will work over two years, putting together a public awareness campaign for this summer\u2019s football World Cup, and researching the scale and impact of gambling on mental health in north London.<\/p>\n
But those involved warned that this funding on its own was not enough to tackle the issue, and that the government needed to take responsibility for preventing gambling harm at a national level.<\/p>\n
Matt Smith, a former gambling addict who is in recovery and now works for the charity Betknowmore, said that it was \u201csuper important\u201d for the power to be handed to local councils.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cThis funding will help to create a more united cross-borough approach, because when I used to gamble I would move from borough to borough, shop to shop. This isn\u2019t a localised issue. There are now 24-hour gambling shops and adult gaming centres across north central London, but local authorities\u2019 hands are tied at the moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat happens because of the \u2018aim to permit\u2019 law is that gambling planning applications have to get waved through, and councils feel powerless to stop it. And the key here is the wider health inequalities that affect local areas from gambling related harm.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd when we\u2019re speaking with the national government we also have to recognise that it goes far beyond public health and needs more attention.\u201d<\/p>\n
Islington\u2019s health chief, Councillor Dr Sara Hyde, also called on the government to engage with local councils about a more legislative approach to counteract gambling-related harm.<\/p>\n
Cllr Dr Hyde said: \u201cWhen we come together as the London Gambling Harms Action Group,we\u2019re all very keen to see the end of a presumption to permit, essentially, so that we have more levers as local councils. \u201cTo the government, we say: meet with us, listen to us on aim to permit. There\u2019s a lot of councils saying the same thing. And listen to the voice of our residents.\u201d<\/p>\n
She added: \u201cMy residents in Caledonian ward say to me, \u2018we don\u2019t want that 24-hour gaming centre\u2019, I want to be able to say, right, the local authority have got the levers to prevent that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Councillors and politicians, including Dawn Butler, MP for Brent East, have been lobbying the government to revoke the aim to permit rules to prevent the proliferation of adult gaming centres in deprived communities.<\/p>\n
Responding to a parliamentary question in November 2025 the government said it had \u201cNo plans to review the 2005 act\u2019s \u2018aim to permit\u2019 provision. However, it does intend to introduce cumulative impact assessments when parliamentary time allows.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former gambling addict Matt Smith from BetKnowMore COUNCILLORS and charities have said the government must change the law…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":530790,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[238602,97,259,260,238603],"class_list":["post-530789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-finn-logue","tag-health","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth","tag-the-islington-tribune"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=530789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530789\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/530790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=530789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=530789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=530789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}