The Licensing Committee met to discuss and approve the minutes from previous meetings and to endorse the proposed Gambling Act Fees for 2026/27, which will now be recommended for adoption through the due process for implementation in the next financial year. The next meeting was scheduled for 10 December 2025.

Gambling Act Fees 2026/27

The committee endorsed the proposed fees under the Gambling Act 2005 for 2026/27, attached as an annex to the report, to be recommended for adoption through the due process for implementation in the next financial year.

Eddie Fisher, Licensing Officer, presented a report explaining that the fees are periodically reviewed to ensure they are reasonable in relation to the time spent processing applications and to account for increased organisational costs such as inflation.

The Gambling Act 2005 specifies the types of application that the council is responsible for as the Licensing Authority. These include premises where the main use is gambling, such as betting shops, bingo halls, gaming arcades and casinos, but also premises where the gambling use is ancillary, such as gaming machines in pubs.

All applications have a statutory fee, but Parliament set some fee levels at a prescribed amount, while others with discretion between a lower and upper amount are set by the local Licensing Authority (that is, the council). The report refers to the fees where the council has that discretion (that is, they are locally set).

The constitution of the council delegates the setting of fees to the Licensing Committee.

There are two types of locally set fees:

• One for certain types of application received
• A second 'subsistence' (or annual fee) to retain a licence granted.

The cost of compliance and enforcement is considered in respect of the subsistence fees, and the cost of processing an application is covered by the application fee.

The current fees were last reviewed in 2024 and implemented for the financial year 2025/26 as part of annual budget setting. There is a need to periodically review whether they are still reasonable based on the work concerned in terms of time spent and accounting for any increased organisational costs (such as inflation). Reviewing fee levels enables us to work towards an objective of cost neutrality.

Based on the review, there is a general increase of fees to account for inflationary pressures. Some fees are not increasing at all because they are already set at the statutory maximum. The fee bandings were set by Parliament in 2007, and so inflation over time has led to many now being at the maximum amount.

The report noted that:

Any change in charges is open to challenge and needs to be seen to be reasonable and attributable to the associated costs through administration and enforcement. If charges are not found to be justifiable then the result can be that charges paid to the council are returned to those who have paid for the licences.

The annex to the report, Gambling Act 2005 - Fees 2026-2027AnnexProposed Fees 2026-2027, contained a table of proposed fees commencing April 2026. The fees were divided into the following categories:

• Casino
• Bingo
• Adult Gaming Centre
• Track Betting
• Family entertainment Centre (FEC)
• Betting (betting shop)

Approval of Minutes

The committee approved the minutes from the following previous meetings:

• Licensing Committee meeting held on 12 February 2025
• Special Licensing Committee meeting held on 14 May 2025
• Licensing Sub-Committee meeting held on 13 February 2025 regarding Transilvania, 180a Queensway, Bletchley
• Licensing Sub-Committee meeting held on 13 March 2025 regarding the revocation of a personal licence
• Licensing Sub-Committee meeting held on 13 March 2025 regarding Eating Greek MK, Wolverton
• Licensing Sub-Committee meeting held on 25 March 2025 regarding The Pavilion, Castlethorpe
• Licensing Sub-Committee meeting held on 9 June 2025 regarding Habibi Lounge / Sora, Queensway, Bletchley
• Licensing Sub-Committee meeting held on 19 June 2025 regarding Premier News, Station Square, Central Milton Keynes