256-258 Forest Road houses a betting shop run by William Hill, a firm which also has local premises on Chingford Road, Lea Bridge Road and Billet Road. It will shortly have a new neighbour as Coral moves their Forest Road branch up the hill to next door to the Hindu Temple.
The place is to the left of the Lord Palmerston. The business next door, as is so often the case with betting shops, has closed. William Hill's themselves scooped up £278.8m profits last year from revenues of £963.7 (up 3%) and chose to be led by CEO Ralph Topping, a man who flunked out of university because - in his own words - he was a bit of a rascal.
You once commented on betting shops as a vehicle for extracting capital from poor neighbourhoods, which is a very valuable prism thro' which to view them. I hate all betting, especially the Lottery- which taxes the poor to fund the recreations of the middle class , but does it sanctimoniously - but now wonder whether the best counterweight to such as Hill would be a local lottery which spent its takings within the community.Perhaps the prizes could be credits at local businesses: perhaps it just lacks the buzz of a bonanza of cash, however unlikely.