A controversial application to open a betting shop next to a youth centre and hostel has run into more opposition.
Coral Racing Ltd applied to turn the empty Horizon Electronics shop at number 58 Station Road in Hayes into a Coral bookmakers.
The space is part of a parade of shops a stones throw away from Hayes YMCA, also in Station Road, and if approved would add to the ten betting shops that already exist in and around Hayes Town.
The licence application was submitted to Hillingdon Council in September and attracted objections from Hayes Town Partnership, High Point Village Residents’ Association, the YMCA and councillor Janet Gardner.
At the time, Hannah Nicholson, youth programmes manager at the YMCA, said: “We have over 180 vulnerable young people in supported housing in Hayes and the youth department sees over 190 young people a month through their youth café and various projects.
“The young people often have to overcome big hurdles and challenges and to have a betting shop on their doorstep is going to negatively impact their lives and put a temptation in their way that they really don’t need.”
On Monday, November 24, Hayes Town Partnership organised a meeting of community groups at the YMCA.
Its chairman David Brough said: “After the Gazette covered the story, it produced a lot of reaction from local people and organisations who found they were too late to lodge formal objections, so I decided to call a meeting of interested groups so they could tell us their views.
“These views will inform the arguments that are put forward by those who have registered objections, when the Licensing Committee meets.
“There was unanimous opposition to the proposal,” he said.
Some of the young people at Hayes YMCA, many of whom are homeless before they seek refuge there, told the meeting they feared the temptation that gambling could offer them as a quick way out of financial problems and said their lives could be set back by it.
Dr Mohamed Adem is a GP at Orchard Practice at the HESA Primary Care Centre in Station Road. He said: “There is a growing problem in Hayes of young people getting addicted to gambling and suffering from the associated issues of alcohol, anxiety and depression.”
Chairman of Hillingdon Chamber of Commerce, Mike Langan, said it is important to the future of Hayes Town to have a good mix of shops and the idea of having another bookmakers in such a sensitive location was “deplorable”.
Father Geoffrey Borrowdale, Parish Priest for nearby St Anselm’s Church, Station Road, explained the church ran clubs for children as young as eight years old and had no wish to expose them to gambling.
“The Church is also home to one of the busiest food banks in the borough and vulnerable individuals and families with problems could be at risk of getting drawn in,” he said.
The council had originally intended to determine the application on October 31, but after the Uxbridge Gazette ran its original article on the application, Coral Racing Ltd is understood to have requested the meeting be deferred.
A new date for the Licencing Committee meeting is yet to be set.
