BETTING shops are routinely being given the go-ahead despite ministers' pledges to crackdown on controversial fixed odds gambling machines, it has been claimed.
The Scottish Government has been accused of failing to protect people following claims local authority attempts to block betting shops from setting up on the high street are regularly overturned.
On six of the last seven occasions when a bookmaker has appealed a council decision to refuse planning permission, government adjudicators have overturned the ruling and allowed the shop to open, according to data collated by Scottish Labour.
Ken Macintosh, the party's social justice spokesman described the record as "deeply worrying".
The government faced heavy criticism this week after it emerged ministers had dropped a commitment to change the planning laws to stop the proliferation of betting shops and payday loan companies on the high street. Concern over bookies' shops has grown because of the increasing popularity of Fixed Odds Betting Terminals, which critics have described as the "crack cocaine of gambling".
According to Scottish Labour, planning reporters have overturned attempts to block betting shops in Aberdeenshire, North Lanarkshire, West Lothian and West Dunbartonshire, where three separate planning appeals were granted, over the past three years. The only appeal to have been thrown out in that period was in Inverclyde. Mr Macintosh said: "It is deeply worrying to hear that Scottish Ministers are routinely overturning local decisions. I have now written to the SNP Government in Edinburgh asking them to examine the criteria they bring to bear."
Derek Mackay, the former local government minister, said last year the government would change legislation to prevent high interest-charging lenders and bookies taking over the high street.
However the government quietly announced a U-turn after public consultation revealed "mixed views". A government spokeswoman said its planning policy now provides a "stronger basis for planning authorities to develop local policies."
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