Greenwich Council’s “abject and repeated failures” meant their decision to refuse a betting office from being set up in Plumstead was overturned.

William Hill applied to put a betting office in Plumstead High Street but was rejected by Greenwich planning committee on February 17.

The betting company appealed the decision to The Planning Inspectorate and the decision was overturned on July 4 with a highly critical appraisal by the government body on Greenwich Council’s planning department.

In the damning statement, published by Inspector Mrtpi Mihe, it said that council officer’s report was “bereft of objective appraisal and substantial evidence”.

Mrtpi Mihe wrote: “The reason for refusal patently failed to stand up to scrutiny on appeal and in particular, the failure to produce the survey data to substantiate the reason for refusal means that the Council’s decision was injudicious and relies on no more than vague and generalised assertions unsupported by appropriate analysis and evidence.

“I have serious misgivings about the way the Council handled the planning application. It is apparent from the email chain between the parties that the applicant requested the Council’s district centre survey on no less than three occasions in February 2017.

“The Council failed to acknowledge or respond to any of these requests. Whilst I can accept that sometimes emails can inadvertently go unanswered, I find it difficult to understand how this could have happened on three separate occasions.

“Despite these failings, the Council had another opportunity to produce the necessary evidence to support its position through the appeal process. However, it again failed to produce the survey or for that matter any substantial evidence to support its reason for refusal.

“As is evident from the Officer Report, the Council’s own survey of the district centre was instrumental in its decision to refuse the application. Therefore the clear, abject and repeated failure to produce the survey leads one to speculate whether a survey actually exists.”

Greenwich Council have been ordered to pay the costs of William Hill’s appeal proceedings.

A spokesperson from Greenwich Council said: “The Council shares the disappointment of local residents that William Hill has won an appeal to open another betting shop in our borough.

“When this application was first submitted, the community were rightly concerned about the impact it would have on the High Street.

“They objected to the application, as did their ward councillors and their MPs. The Council then rejected the application twice.

“The Council would like to apologise for the fact that the review undertaken by the Planning Inspectorate identified a number of weaknesses in our processes and the Council's planning service is taking active steps to address this.

“We thoroughly accept that we did not defend our position robustly enough to the Planning Inspectorate at the Appeals stage.

“In terms of the Council's position, we stand with the people of Plumstead and have stridently defended our position by refusing planning requests for new betting shops where we have had the legal grounds to do so.

“Indeed, the Council's lobbying of Government led to a change in the law so that betting shops are not automatically granted planning permission under an existing use class.

“Betting shops are a blight on our town centres and high streets and we will continue to seek to stem their tide where we can do so.

“We have been working hard to address residents' concerns on Plumstead High Street and will continue to do so moving forward.”