Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1100
- 1109)
THURSDAY 29 JANUARY 2004
CLLR RICHARD
GRANT, CLLR
CAROLINE SEYMOUR
AND CLLR
GRAHAM BROWN
Q1100 Dr Pugh: There is no LGA view?
Cllr Grant: No.
Q1101 Chairman: Do you have any view
whether casinos should be sited in and around shopping malls?
Cllr Grant: There is a view that
it should be determined by local policy but there is not a view
of how that local policy should be determined.
Q1102 Chairman: Would a shopping mall
be a suitable location or not?
Cllr Grant: The answer to that
would be for local decision. It would depend on the location of
the shopping mall, what part of the country, whether it would
add to the experience of the shopping or the leisure or whether
it would detract from that. It would be subject to those local
decisions and the local plan.
Q1103 Chairman: If government planning
guidance said that they should not be out of town at all but they
should be in city centres, what would your reaction be to that?
Cllr Grant: It would make sense
in the context of other leisure provision and the other aspects
to do with tourism and the hotel business and industry. It could
make sense in terms of town centre regeneration.
Q1104 Jeff Ennis: Blackpool Council have
suggested that a separate planning class is introduced for casinos.
Is this a view you share?
Cllr Brown: This is a new idea
that we have just learned about and we have not had time to consult
with members to give you the LGA view. The initial response is
why create another class? What is so special about casinos that
they should have a particular class?
Q1105 Jeff Ennis: Possibly Blackpool
are thinking about the large casino type development that may
need quite a big area, from a regional planning point of view.
Cllr Brown: That would be the
same for a large hotel, sports club development or leisure development.
Q1106 Chairman: The existing location
controls under class D2 use are adequate, in your view? I have
raised this issue with you before.
Cllr Brown: We have not had a
chance to consult on this and research it thoroughly. I would
like to give a written answer.
Q1107 Lord Walpole: In order to open
a casino, developers will need a premises licence and could also
be required to obtain separate planning consent. How will local
authorities work to ensure that this is not overly burdensome
for firms?
Cllr Brown: The relationship between
planning and licensing is very important so that positive and
negative impacts on development are recognised. The LGA would
encourage parallel policy development and close liaison between
officers and applicants. Councils' gambling licensing policy statements
should be informed by and coordinated with all related planning
policy development. The scenario is not terribly different from
applications for new public houses where planning licences have
to be obtained by the business.
Lord Walpole: I am not sure I agree with
you.
Q1108 Chairman: The government has said
that local authorities should be able to ask for contributions
towards any area that has more than a trivial connection the proposed
development. How do you see that working in practice, bearing
in mind that you seem to have doubts about the regenerative prospects
of casinos?
Cllr Seymour: We currently work
within section 106 agreements with developers on all sorts of
projects. It is quite common for developers to pay for all sorts
of improvements and knock on effects of building. With a large
supermarket, they might be asked to contribute to improving the
roads and so on in the local area. We already do have that practice
and I would foresee that that would be applied to big casino developments
as well.
Q1109 Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville: Have
you read the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill which is presently
going through the House of Lords?
Cllr Seymour: No. That was why
Councillor Kemp was supposed to be here.
Chairman: I do appreciate that your planning
expert sadly could not make it. We are grateful however that all
three of you did and thank you for answering our questions.
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