UK Councils Gain Power to Block New Betting Shops as Aim to Permit Falls

Prime Minister Andy Burnham announced on August 11, 2026 that the government will scrap the “aim to permit” rule, the two-decade-old licensing duty that has pushed English, Scottish and Welsh councils toward approving new betting shops and 24-hour slot machine venues even in the face of local opposition. The change hands local authorities a genuine veto over new gambling premises for the first time since the Gambling Act 2005 created the duty, and the gambling industry and harm-reduction campaigners spent the day publicly at odds over what it will do to Britain’s high streets.

The announcement, confirmed by Downing Street as part of a wider high street package, goes further than the licensing rule. New adult gaming centres, the 24-hour slot machine venues known as AGCs, will require planning permission to open in England, and the scrapping of the presumption to permit applies Great Britain-wide. Northern Ireland is untouched, since it has never operated under the 2005 Act. The proposals are expected to take effect at the start of 2027, according to the Press Association’s report on the announcement.

Burnham framed the package as a response to organised crime on high streets and decades of decline. “The rise of vape shops, betting shops and rogue operators have replaced the shops, services, and community spaces that people are crying out for,” he said. “That’s not on. I said we would improve Britain’s high streets, and that’s exactly what we are starting to do.” The Social Market Foundation, which recommended the move in an October 2025 report, said the government had adopted its proposal outright.

What Aim to Permit Actually Did

The duty sits in the part of the Gambling Act 2005 that governs how councils decide premises licence applications. Its text requires a licensing authority to “aim to permit the use of premises for gambling” wherever an application complies with the regulator’s codes and guidance, is reasonably consistent with the licensing objectives, and fits the council’s own published policy. The same provision bars authorities from considering expected demand for the gambling on offer, so a council cannot refuse a bookmaker simply because the area already has several.

In practice, councils that refused compliant applications faced legal challenge and appeal costs. The House of Commons said as much on January 8, 2026, when it resolved without a vote, on a motion brought by Brent East MP Dawn Butler, that the aim to permit principle “erodes the ability of local communities to shape their neighbourhoods” and called on the government to remove it. Gaming.net covered the pledge itself when Burnham first committed to scrapping the rule earlier on August 11, 2026.

Removing the duty does not close any existing venue. It changes the default for new applications: councils will be able to weigh local saturation, deprivation and harm evidence without a statutory thumb on the scale toward approval.

Britain’s Gambling Premises by the Numbers

• 8,148 licensed gambling premises in Great Britain as of December 2025, per the Gambling Commission’s quarterly statistics
• 5,669 betting shops at that date, down from 5,825 in the annual figures to March 2025
• 1,415 adult gaming centres as of March 2025, per Gambling Commission figures cited by its chief executive
• Betting premises have declined for eleven consecutive reporting periods
• Around 3,000 shops closed and 15,000 jobs lost since 2019, with 37,500 jobs still supported, according to the Betting and Gaming Council

Industry and Campaigners Split Over a Shrinking Estate

The Betting and Gaming Council, the trade body for licensed UK operators, rejected the premise behind the policy within hours. “The suggestion that betting shops are spreading unchecked is simply wrong,” a spokesperson said. “It is wrong to lump highly regulated, licensed betting shops together with rogue or criminal businesses. Betting shops still support 37,500 jobs, bring vital footfall to neighbouring businesses and, for many customers, are valued community hubs.”

The regulator’s own published data supports the contraction claim: the shop count has fallen every reporting period for over a decade, and the Commission recorded 5,669 betting shops at the end of December 2025 against more than 8,000 in 2019. The pressure has shown up in operator decisions all year, from Betfred’s announcement of more than 130 shop closures to the wider debate over whether adult gaming centres are becoming the high street’s growth format as bookmakers retreat.

Campaigners counter on concentration, not totals. The Social Market Foundation’s research found AGCs increasingly clustered in the most deprived parts of the country, and 44% of 14-to-17-year-olds it polled in September 2025 agreed that having gambling venues nearby made people their age more interested in gambling. Jamie Gollings, the think tank’s deputy research director and co-author of its report, said the announcement “puts decision-making back where it belongs, with the councils and communities who have to live with the consequences.” The Centre for Social Justice and the Local Government Association, whose chair Eamonn O’Brien called the changes positive for councils shaping their communities, also welcomed the package, while Peers for Gambling Reform’s chair Lord Foster of Bath said he looked forward to helping bring about abolition as soon as possible.

Where the Rule Still Has to Be Repealed

The announcement commits the government; it does not itself amend the statute. Legislation already moving through Parliament carries a commitment to strip the aim to permit duty from the Gambling Act, and the official record of the Act shows amendments to the provision and new inserted sections awaiting commencement under a 2026 statute. Until those changes are brought into force, the duty remains the law councils apply.

The planning side moves on a separate track. The new permission requirement for AGCs applies only in England, takes effect through planning law changes expected at the start of 2027, and sits alongside the government’s previously confirmed plan to introduce cumulative impact assessments, which let councils refuse applications in areas already saturated with gambling outlets. Ministers told Parliament in January 2026 those assessments would come forward when parliamentary time allowed.

For operators across Great Britain, the question from the expected start-2027 commencement is no longer whether councils can say no, but how many will. Thirty-eight local authorities, including Burnham’s former Greater Manchester (MANU ) administration, had publicly called for the rule’s removal before the announcement. Once the repeal and the planning changes commence, every new betting shop or slot machine venue application in Great Britain becomes a genuine local decision, and the industry’s shrinking estate becomes, in part, a council-by-council question.