30/09/2013 Inside Out East Midlands

Hello. Tonight Inside Out East Midlands is at the Eagle Centre

Market in Derby. Coming up in the next half hour: High stakes roulette

at your local betting shop — is it creating a new generation of

gambling addicts? It's the crack cocaine of the

betting industry — at my worst I could lose a month's salary in a

couple of hours, it was horrendous. With tough times on our high street

are parking charges the real reason shoppers stay away. Geoff Burch

investigates. Look at this. It is devastation. I

cannot see an open shop. And how Harry finally got recognition for

the wartime miners who were forced to dig for coal.

Nowadays if you visit your local betting shop, chances are you'll

find as many people playing on a high stakes gaming machines as

you'll see betting over the counter. Here in the East Midlands we spend

about one and a half billion pounds a year on those machines and one man

from Derby is so concerned about them he's launched a national

campaign to get them scrapped. Which is interesting because millionaire

Derek Webb made all his money from gambling.

It's a world of high rollers and high risk but nowadays you don't

have to dress up like James Bond to gamble casino style, just head down

to your local betting shop. I've been playing roulette on a fixed

odds betting terminal. There are four in there, four over their and

down the road another four. These machines now bring in at least as

much money as traditional over—the—counter betting and that

our 1400 of them in the East Midlands. We were not allowed to

film the playing on one. That may be because they've become very

controversial and that's partly down to one man's campaign.

This is the name of the game. Derek Webb feels right at home in a

casino. He has made millions from gambling, not by playing that buy

inventing one called three card poker. It is dramatic. This was the

first game introduced into British casinos and it has settled in and

become the leading game. Selling the right has earned Derek tens of

millions. It means he can split his time between his house in Derby and

a home in Las Vegas. But now this poacher has turned gamekeeper. Derek

is funding a campaign against fast play high—stakes roulette machines

on the high street. It's called the campaign for fairer gambling. Sarah

because according to Derek there's a big difference between playing

roulette on a machine and sitting down at a table. Here, heavy has

their own chips and puts their bets down and you would have social

interaction between the players. The dealer would spin and it would take

a minute or two minutes to get the resolution. That is the difference

to a machine like this. This is a regular casino machine, you can play

£2. The player on the faulty machine can bet £100 every 20 seconds so it

is a different experience to the live casino table. £100 every 20

seconds cost Roger Radler his marriage and his job. He used to

work in the city as a business development manager but that was

before he got hooked on roulette. This is the walk I took sometimes on

a daily basis. Minute after minute, hour after hour, four bookmakers. I

went from one to the other. I have not been here for a while. I'm

shamed just... I do not recognise myself, I am into my recovery now.

What was I doing? Look at the opening hours, nine until nine. I

spent from nine o'clock in the morning until 9:30pm. Now compete in

therapy and trying to help other addict with eight warts and all

website about what to him. It is the crack cocaine of the gambling

industry. You can get your high every 15 seconds and you are losing

huge sums of money. I lost a month salary within a couple of hours that

is horrendous. Professor Jim Orford is an addiction expert. He says

high—stakes fixed odds betting terminal is should never have been

allowed on the high street. They are different, gambling machines are

like addiction machines. They really doing coverage you to keep on

playing. And many of the people in the gambling industry, if you talk

to them and get them off the record, they admit essentially what they

want is to get people in front of the machines and keep them there as

long as possible. Games machines have been here for ten years and no

evidence has been produced to show the machines cause problem gambling.

Today, Derek Webb is taking his campaign to London. We are going to

Thames Magistrates Court, there's a magistrates between Newham Council

and Paddy Power. New have refused a licence to Paddy Power saying the

borough has too many betting shops and the machines mean these are no

longer traditional bookmakers. In a betting office you would be placing

bets, if you want to place a bet on the horses of the dogs or football,

that's all right but if your income comes from other means which it does

mainly from gambling machines, it should not be allowed. Paddy Power

has appealed and they win the argument and their licence in

court. It is seen as a test case and puts the campaign in the media

spotlight. The campaign is continuing, we need to stop the most

harmful and Dick differential forms of gambling in Britain from growing

on the high street. Within a few hundred yards you can see most of

the main high street betting shops names. Councils have been watching

the new case including Lester's deputy mayor. The law is

restrictive, local government finds itself with few powers to stop this

growth in betting shops and machines being placed on the high street. I

want to see a planning category introduced for betting shops. We

need local councils given powers to stop the growth in betting shops and

to keep these high—stakes high risk machines off the high street.

Councils were with the machines are responsible for an increase in

anti—social behaviour. When panorama investigated last year, they filmed

frustrated customers turning violent, staff felt threatened.

People go berserk, kicking the screens, smashing it, trying to tip

it over. They are picking up chairs, throwing things because they have

lost their money. (BLEEP). Somebody came up with a pickaxe because they

said we dropped his money. It is frightening. The most disgusting

thing is when people spit on the machines. Some of these people are

almost proffering at the mouth. Adrian Parkinson used to work as a

regional manager and remembers the machines being introduced. He now

works with the campaign. Managing these machines, I got calls about

machines being smashed up because customers lost so much money, its

impact not just on his back pocket but the wife and kids and all of the

issues from that. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport have asked

the responsible gambling trust for more research into whether the

machines are addict. That is due next year. The industry says they

are reacting to concerns about customers playing too long and

losing too much. The industry will introduce in the autumn a new code

for responsible gambling which will set out a range of measures that

operators will help people with gambling and minimise harm. The

important thing is betting shops in Nottingham employee 170 people, it

is creating jobs when big retailers go and that is real people losing

real jobs. Derek says until stakes are reduced and play slow down, the

campaign will continue. I am not anti gambling, but this is clear,

the evidence is in, this is the most addictive form of gambling in

Britain and we need to get the government to act.

Still to come tonight, the story of the Bevin boys: Across the country

one in seven shops stands vacant. In the East Midlands the latest figures

actually show an improvement. But the picture's so patchy it might not

feel like things are getting better where you live? Inside Out's

business guru Geoff Burch has been exploring the winners and losers as

some shopkeepers battle to survive. Nottingham prides itself on being

one on the UK's top shopping destinations. So when a national

survey of empty shops announced the city had a thirty per cent vacancy

rate, double the national average, it came as a bit of a blow. These

figures were disputed, a huge row kicked off and a task force was set

up to try to fill these empty shops. It is a year on, over a quarter of

the shops are still empty and Nottingham is right at the bottom of

the heap when it was the most big arrest town in England. What about

the smaller towns, the dozens of high streets, how are they holding

up? I've come to Matlock to meet two local business experts. Anna and

Dina run a company which helps independent shops set up and expand

across Derbyshire. I'm hoping they can give me an insight into what's

happening on our high streets. Welcome! To me, the East Midlands is

a dramatic example that there's nothing in them middle of boom and

bust. They are beating the trend or fallen under it. What is the story?

There is a mixture. If I go up to the high Peak of Derbyshire, Buxton,

once the famous spa town lost its way and they realise they have to

get on the front foot and get away from the status complaining about a

supermarket in town who might provide car parking so they are

waking up and coming good. In the far side of Nottinghamshire and I

think Grantham, again, widest simile large chains pull out, it has set

the traffic away to the edge of town or shopping centres. In Matlock it

is a thing. It is wonderful but it could have taken a dive. One of the

reasons they could have taken a hit is because Sainsbury's opened. It

was a tale of two towns. The traders came together and worked together to

make sure that actually that wasn't going to happen. They were

determined, positive, they form a limited company said that it really

did feel like a business. Not one by the council, not run by the traders,

the jointly coming together, collaboratively, and also asking the

locals what they wanted. It turned out top of the list was parking

charges. With the help of these ladies a solution was found. When

you buy something in one of the participating shops you get your car

parking cost refunding. What makes the difference between a high Street

boom and a high Street bust? To find out I want to compare to Derbyshire

town 's, both similar in size, both built on coal and heavy industry.

First up, Ilkeston. The top half of the time isn't bad, there is a

market square and the sandbox but look at this, it is devastation. I

cannot see an open shop. In a recent survey 18% of shops they can, it is

like 100%. There is a vacant pub, newsagents, everything is empty.

Whose bright idea was it to board the shops up with luck paint? It has

gone downhill a lot in the last couple of years. Empty shops. Plain

and simple. There is nothing, no where to buy clothes, shoes,

nothing. Unless you like Tesco. It is like one of those American ghost

towns, the gold has been mined, the minerals have been taken, all you

want if the skull of a dead cow and we will have completed the whole

scene. I'm meeting Dave Thorpe, who is head of the Chamber of Trade. He

claims his is the oldest shop in the town. Thorpes opened 125 years ago.

I've been warned, he doesn't pull any punches about the state of his

High Street. In making this programme we have

asked the local MP and a whole host of other people including our

Erewash Partnership if they could make a comment, and they are very

difficult to get a hold of. Of course, there are a lot of people

with fingers in this pie. We have made various proposals like on the

use of the empty Woolworths, on the empty leisure centre they have, we

get no response. They did actually agree it was a good idea, but

nothing happened. David has got a simple solution, something he offers

on a small scale outside his own store. It's free parking, to stop

shoppers heading out of town to the retail park. What is their reply

when you look them straight in the face, Councillor X, why can't I have

free parking? Because we can't afford it. Are you a lone voice or

do the people of Ilkeston feel this? Does anybody understand what you are

saying? Oh yes, I get them in here all the time, I don't want to be

arrested for incense to riot, but if we were French we would have broken

the town hall windows years ago. He is a very shrewd, clever

businessman, also a very angry man. He's quite right, Ilkeston is dying

on its feet. The council have got to do something. David's thing is

parking, is it parking, is it something else? Something has to be

done or this town isn't going to survive. I do think a lot of the

councils could do more for Ilkeston, definitely. There is a lot of

potential here, and we need the help. It just needs somebody with a

bit of foresight to see what it could be, we have got a few

specialist shops coming in which is nice. I noticed, tattoos! I am going

to have one on my bum. Oh, lovely. Show us that one!

I have arrived at my second chosen town, Swadlincote in South

Derbyshire. Despite being similar to Ikleston in many ways it has half

the number of empty shops. We need to keep things in perspective, this

ain't no Regent Street, but things do look better. It has got just the

same roots as Ilkeston, mining, heavy industry, but somehow here

things seem to be looking up, they are facing the same challenges, the

same recession that we are all facing, yet the dynamism of the

people who run this place are really making great changes, look at the

place, it is alive. I am meeting the man from the council who is in

charge of the changes. There is a new retail park, not out of town but

connected to the old high street by a pedestrian link. They have also

created a cultural quarter to promote tourism and they have

encouraged big manufacturers to set up shop and employ hundreds of local

people. It is kind of a benign dictatorship, you even moved the

market, didn't you? Yes, I did, it was important to take it from where

it was not successful to where them would feel they had a better chance

to be successful, outdoors, in the traditional way. All of these things

have been successful but it does take one person to say this will

happen. As the Chief Executive I am given that power by my members but

it takes my members, the local politicians, to be brave to allow me

to push this forward and we have always planned for the future.

Besides Swadlincote's ongoing master plan he has a killer weapon up his

sleeve, possibly the most contentious issue with town shoppers

across Britain. People don't just pop into the supermarket, load the

car and clear off. No. They do that because the clock isn't ticking,

there is no parking charge. The notice you are standing in front of,

six hours free parking. The whole town is predicated on free parking.

The Chamber of Trade need that margin to encourage people to come

in and we are getting visitors with Birmingham accents, from all over

the small towns that don't have these national facilities. You are

the Dubai of the East Midlands. Standing here in temperatures like

this, I am not going to deny it. Hearing it from the head of the

local council is all very well, but what do some of the locals say? It

is a lot bigger and better than what it used to be. At one point you used

to come down here and you wouldn't see anybody walking up and down.

Since they've opened a new complex by Morrisons at the top, that has

made it a lot better. The changes here have been dramatic. What is the

future? Things are difficult in the retail trade, we don't hide from

that fact, I certainly think with the investment in the area, and our

new developments we have happening, we are very excited. Onward and

upward. Absolutely. So this has been a tale of two

towns, Ilkeston, struggling to attract shoppers to its high street,

and Swadlincote, apparently bouncing back from the recession. Who would

have thought parking charges could have such an impact? In my opinion

councils need to listen, and in Swadlincote they have listened and

they have developed a devastating secret weapon, it is called free

parking. The only problem I have is how on earth am I going to get this

lot home? This year a group of men were

finally recognised for what they did during the Second World War. But

recognition came too late for many of the 48,000 Bevin Boys who worked

down the coal mines to keep the nation powered during wartime. It

was the efforts of the Nottingham man which really made us sit up and

take notice. James spent the day down a mine with the remarkable

Harry Parkes. Harry first walked into a pit as a

freshfaced teenager. He had no choice. It is amazing, it has never

changed, the men are just the same. His name was drawn out of a ballot

to go down a mine and dig for coal rather than join the forces. Going

down for the first time must have been something... It was, and it was

a strange experience. Of course, what you think is what is there when

we get to the bottom? I haven't a clue. Our cameraman goes to

Yorkshire colliery to watch the arrival of a party of Mr Bevin's

boys, young conscripts drafted into the mines instead of the Armed

Forces. The old newsreel said how it was, but not everybody realised.

Because there was no uniform some thought them conscientious objectors

to fighting. So there were taunts and suspicions of draft dodging. We

have taken Harry Parkes to the National Coal Mining Museum near

Wakefield to tell us about that first day down the pit. You think to

yourself, how long before this all caves in? You don't have pit sense,

you are just a greenhorn and everything is so strange. Scary?

Absolutely. You were really scared. Remember, there is hundreds of feet

of rock above us. Then comes some advice on mining given by

experienced instructors. They will learn a lot, not least how a

coalminer lives as well as works. The safety lamps are issued and the

party prepares to descend into the dark labyrinth of tunnels deep below

the surface. It was a dangerous job. Some of these young men would have

died underground. They'd all had dreams dashed by war. Harry Parkes,

who had been at school with Alan Sillitoe in Radford, left there to

work as a cinema projectionist in Nottingham when the call—up came he

had not expected to be forced to dig for coal. If you didn't want to go,

they threw you in jail, no appeal, no trial, and you stayed there until

you changed your mind. So I went. We felt slave labour, in a way. One

banged his head. He hasn't got pit sense. Look at this. This is from my

day. That was your snack, or rather you lunch. It just fitted a loaf,

slice of loaf. I had a jam sandwich and if it was a high day, I would

perhaps have a piece of cake which was rare in wartime. This has got a

bit squashed but this was the bottle that held water, it is called a

Dudley, it had a cork in the top, and so when you had your snack you

sat on the floor opened your tin, had a drink of nearly cold water and

that was 15 minute break in a seven and a half hour shift.

The enforced labour went on years into peacetime. There was no

recognition for the Bevin Boys' war effort either. Not for 70 years,

until a badge was awarded in 2008 to those who'd lived long enough. It

was a survivor's badge, and if you died before the date of issue of the

badge, you got no recognition. The families have got no recognition,

they have got nowhere to go to remember their loved ones. I'm

sorry, I have lived with this for 70 years in my mind.

Harry was the inspiration behind a campaign to get and design a

memorial. Joan Taylor was the instigator of Harry's plan. Bevin

Boys are forgotten people, they were, in fact, conscripted. A lot of

people don't realise that. They think they were conscientious

objectors and they have never had a proper recognition that they did

their part as conscripts for the war effort and it is about time they

were properly recognised. This is the wartime roof support. Harry's

knowledge of life underground remains. There is today enthusiasm

at what he finds. Because being a Bevin Boy changed his path in life.

He carried on in mining, and was later a university expert on the

industry. Knowledge he is keen to share still. You lowered those, you

push that conveyor over with the ram on the floor, and the back of the

ram was held steady because it was trapped between the floor and roof.

They don't do half the things they should have done for Bevin Boys.

They have been the forgotten heroes of the war. This memorial I think

says a lot in its simplicity. It is the design Harry and I wanted,

something simple but gives that message. And now he has shared the

story of the Bevin Boys acknowledged by royalty, at the National Memorial

Arboretum. It has given the Bevin Boys the right to stand tall, just

like our monument, and say I was a Bevin Boy. And for that, is the

answer to all my hopes and dreams for the last 70 years.

Thank you. Thank you. Today, was the first day of my experience as a

Bevin Boy. I went through everything, from going down the

shaft to the sudden what I thought was a rush, the supports, the men

that we've been with, it has brought back so many memories. Not bad

memories, but just experience. I think, it made me in a way, it

altered my life. The remarkable Harry Parkes sharing

his memories. Thanks, Harry. If you missed any of tonight programme you

can go to the BBC iPlayer. On next week's Inside Out East Midlands, the

story behind the long—running battle in the smallest county, the gloves

are off in Rutland. Is free—speech really being muzzled?