Fears are growing that retailers who fail to sell a required number of lottery tickets would lose their terminals should the People's Lottery win the franchise. Association of Convenience Stores chief executive Trevor Dixon said he was alarmed by comments about a "trial period for retailers", which carried the implication that underperforming outlets would lose their licence. People's Lottery chief executive Simon Burridge admitted retailers would have to "meet certain criteria" to retain their terminals, with sales performance likely to feature on the list. But he insisted this was "not about penalising people". "I can give you my word of honour that we're not planning to throw hordes of people out," he said. It would take six months to compile data outlining the performance of the retail estate, because rival Camelot had not come up with the information. "After that we will draw up the criteria in association with trade bodies such as the ACS. But we are also setting up an independent compliance panel so that retailers and trade associations can present their case to the panel if they feel they have been unfairly treated." Retailers failing to meet the criteria would be given a further six months to improve. "We just want to make the retail estate more efficient so that the maximum amount of money goes to good causes," said Burridge. "If there are two shops next door to each other and one is selling one unit and the other is selling 200, is that the best use of lottery resources?" {{NEWS }}