Hillingdon Tories block limits on betting shops

Cllr Peter Curling

Labour Councillor Peter Curling writes “Once again, the Tory group in Hillingdon has proved that their marketing strap line of “Putting residents first” is precisely that, a marketing strapline, and one with absolutely no substance.

At the full Council meeting on Thursday 5^th July the Labour group tabled two motions, one asking the Cabinet to reconsider their decision to close three day centres for the disabled.  Not surprisingly the Tory group put their party whip before the residents and voted down that motion.

The other motion was for the Council to support the Government commissioned, Mary Portas  (otherwise known as Mary Queen of Shops) review of High streets and the High Steets First campaign led by Cllr Rowena Davis (Southwark Council) in their efforts to get planning law changed so that the council can control the number of betting shops in town centres.

Given our continued economic slump and an economy that has flat lined for the last 2 years, there is real concern that of betting shops on our high streets are exploiting people’s desperation for a way out of poverty, giving rise to payday loan companies and creating a trickle up movement of money moving from the poor to the rich.

Other boroughs and campaign groups are now working together to force a change in the law. Under current planning law betting shops are taking over vacant high street units with their existing A2 classification meaning they don't need any planning permission. This is because betting shops, according to Planning Law, are listed as “financial services”.

Labour Councillor Lynne Allen proposed the motion and made it absolutely clear that we are not against betting shops per se and that our concerns are centred on clusters of Bookies which are said to hamper work around regeneration by discouraging businesses from moving into the area and making it difficult to create a more diverse and vibrant high street.

Mary Portas made a recommendation in her review that would have changed the classification of betting shops and placed limits on their numbers.  ” campaign also calls for the government to change the law in order to give local communities a say over the number of betting shops in their area.

During the Mayoral election campaign Boris Johnson indicated his support for these campaigns by saying:

"We certainly should be making it easier for councils to block them (bookmakers) - they're not only spreading false hope, they're reducing the economic vitality of high streets. Bookmakers are a spiritual narcotic that breed false hope and it's a terrible thing to see."

It was therefore very sad to see the Tories speaking against the campaigns to curb the proliferation of betting shops and by doing so they actually started arguing that clusters of betting shops and the encouragement of gambling was a good thing. 

Rather than put the residents first in this debate, the Conservative group put their need to play pointless party political games in the Council chamber, before any commitment to the residents that they were elected to serve.

New Hillingdon Labour Group Leader first statement

Councillor Peter Curling

On 8 May 2012 Councillor Peter Curling, one of three Labour ward Councillors for Townfield, was elected Leader of the Hillingdon Labour Group. A few days later Councillor Curling wrote for the Uxbridge Gazette:

"For every day since this Tory led Government took office, 625 public service jobs have been axed bringing untold hardship to countless families. On 3^rd of May we saw people throughout the country go to the polls and express their deep dis-satisfaction with the Tory led Government resulting in Labour making huge gains up and down the country.  The London Mayoral result came down to the big “marmite” personalities of Ken & Boris, rather than the usual party politics and the Boris Bounce was just enough to push him back into the Mayoralty, more a victory for “Boris” brand than an endorsement of the Conservatives.

The election of the GLA Assembly Members saw Labour overturn a 28,000 Tory majority here in Ealing and Hillingdon where Dr Onkar Sahota replaced the former Deputy Mayor, Richard Barnes.  The London-wide party list candidates also saw a huge swing to Labour.  This now means that although Boris is the Mayor of London, the assembly has a majority of Labour members. Unfortunately it’s not the two thirds majority required to kerb the Mayor’s actions or amend the Mayor’s budget, but it does mean that there are more Labour members on the assembly to scrutinise and hold the Mayor to account.

Looking at local issues I am sure that a significant factor to the swing to Labour in Ealing & Hillingdon was the government’s plans to close Ealing Hospital as part of the top down reorganisation of the NHS that David Cameron specifically promised not to do.  So how fitting it is that the winning Labour candidate is a Doctor who is committed to supporting and defending the NHS. Labour is the only party that supports our great British institutions, like the NHS, the only party who will keep our public services public.

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Labour campaigning to save Ealing Hospital

The Tory led coalition abandoned their mantra of “we’re all in it together” (if we ever believed it!) when they decided to cut the tax of the wealthiest and richest in our society whilst mercilessly cutting benefits and life-lines to some of the poorest and most vulnerable.  They have reverted to type and taken a deeply unfair approach to our economic problems, their policies of tax cuts for the rich and increasing the burden on the poor have clearly failed.

The recent elections have sent a strong message to the government; The country has had enough of Tory austerity, of out of touch and no hope policies that have dragged us back into recession.  We want to prove that in tough times you can depend on Labour to fight for you, we will put residents first and we are determined to prove that in the coming months.