Manchester offered deal to soften supercasino blow
Patrick Wintour, political editor
The Guardian, Tuesday 26 February 2008
The government is to offer multimillion pound regeneration packages to Manchester and Blackpool today to make up for the decision not to grant a supercasino licence to either city.
Ministers will soften the impact of Gordon Brown's "big moral decision" with a series of measures, including a £10m boost for Manchester's Sports City, the one-time planned site for the casino. They are also expected to announce that 4,000 jobs will be created by extending until 2014 the life of the urban regeneration company New East Manchester, which was due to close shortly.
A higher education initiative, including a campus boosting the number of students in the city, is also on the cards.
Ministerial sources hope the package will be sufficient to prevent the Labour-controlled Manchester city council seeking a judicial review of the decision not to go ahead with the supercasino in Beswick, one of its most rundown areas.
Labour MPs had pleaded with culture secretary Andy Burnham to delay the announcement confirming Manchester was not to host a supercasino until he had a regeneration package to announce as compensation. Some of the investment will go on a BMX extreme sports centre.
The city council says it invested nearly £250,000 in its efforts to win the supercasino and made no bid for a medium-sized casino. The local authority is bitter at Brown's handling of the issue but has been explicit that it will not go ahead with legal action if some kind of jobs package is presented.
Blackpool will be told it can go ahead with a £300m regeneration package, including an £82m investment in 3.2km (1.9 miles) of new sea defences and an extra £100m investment in further education.
Both councils will scour the small print to see the scale of the money involved.
Brown won plaudits from opponents of gambling by rejecting the supercasino enthusiastically backed by Tony Blair, but he knows he now has to answer charges that his moral scruples have deprived two rundown areas of the best chance for regeneration. Both have marginal constituencies that Brown dare not lose.
The government's task has been made more difficult since a report requested by Brown from the communities secretary, Hazel Blears, has failed to come up with a single alternative to regeneration through gambling. The report argues there is no silver bullet, but rather measures such as better transport, labour market skills and targeted investment are needed.
One source said it was not possible for the government to invent an industry to regenerate an area.
Burnham will confirm that 16 planned medium casinos will go ahead, although he will demand that the casino operators put more money into a gambling addiction prevention fund.
In January 2006, the casino advisory panel selected Manchester over Blackpool for a supercasino, but the proposal hit a roadblock when peers voted against giving the franchise to Manchester amid furious lobbying.
Brown then said he would not seek to overturn the Lords decision.
