Business in Licensing, working with the Gambling Business Group, has formulated a plan to remove the requirement for pubs to notify licensing authorities that they wish to use their “automatic entitlement” to two machines.
The proposal, which also has the support of the British Beer and Pub Association and the Gambling Commission, will save pub operators and machine suppliers a £50 notification and remove layers of wasteful administrative burden in the process.
The move would save the UK pub sector at least £500,000 a year. Peter Hannibal, chief executive of the Gambling Business Group, said: "The current process requires the writing of a formal letter, accompanied by a £50 fee, to notify the licensing authority of the premises licence holder’s intent to install up to two gaming machines of category C or D, to which he is entitled under the Gambling Act 2005.
“The fee, which barely covers the costs of the administration process for the licensing authority, let alone the cost of enforcing or inspecting against the notice, represents an unnecessary cost to business while failing to add to the safety of the public or the effectiveness of the regulatory regime.”
He added that the present notification process fails to accurately deliver to the Gambling Commission data on the number of gaming machines in alcohol licensed premises.
Nick Arron, partner at Poppleston Allen, the leading licensing solicitors which formulated the proposals, said: "Taken together, this raft of changes should result in a reduction of costs to licensed businesses and machine operators and the removal of unnecessary confusion around the notification process.”
Pictured: Peter Hannibal, CEO, Gambling Business Group
