Super Casino for Manchester: A bad decision?

[aidanorourke]

On the Eye On Manchester website I've briefly expressed my views on the decision that a super-casino licence should be awarded to Manchester.

In my opinion the decision is wrong. Blackpool would have benefited much more from a super-casino. I also have mixed feelings about casinos, having a decidedly puritanical attitude towards gambling.

What do people think about the decision? There is no doubt that it will bring jobs and regeneration to Manchester, an area that has already benefited extensively from new development.

But will there be negative effects on that part of Manchester? Wouldn't it have been better to award it to Blackpool, for all the obvious reasons?

Your views please!

[kevconnor]

It is interesting if you read the report from the independent gambling commission. The reason Manchester was chosen was two fold firstly it had the most comprehensive social policy for dealing with the casino, secondly it is the most in need of regeneration.

This just leads me onto an interesting point it seems that since the late 80's now Manchester has been in a state of constant regeneration (which to me is still just code for constant building work). The main reason for this is because of the social deprivation in Manchester, if you look at the Hulme and Moss Side partnership in the mid-90's the 'New East Manchester company' in the new millennia the regeneration of much of Salford the regeneration (ore lack there of) of north Manchester. This has been based on the statistics that Manchester was and still is one of the most deprived areas in the UK and up until the influx from Eastern Europe was also one of the most deprived areas in the old EU 15. Nearly 20 years of regeneration and yet still one of the most deprived areas the question needs to be asked what are we doing wrong? Whilst I wouldn't say it has been a total failure when looking around Manchester now there are parts that are better now than they were in the early 90's but it seems now like the effects aren't being felt by everyone and so we are generating social exclusion.

[aidanorourke]

Yes, that's a very good point. There seems to be a mismatch between the self-congratulatory statements of Manchester City Council concerning regeneration and economic development, whilst at the same time, as you say, Manchester still has some of the most deprived areas in the EU.

There are other issues that have been causing me some concern recently. I read on the Manchester Evening News Diary page by Dianne Bourne (Wednesday 30 Jan) that Le Mont Resturant in Urbis has closed, because there were not enough upmarket customers, and other reasons. In Castlefield, the award-winning Quay Bar, with a futuristic design by Roger Stephenson architects, is now boarded up and abandoned.

What is going on in our city?

[Henry Mantell]

Very valid points about regeneration of cities on this forum.
The Manchester bid seems to hugely benefit the South African businessman behind Sun City. I have concerns about Supercasinos as gambling addiction wrecks lives and the larger slot jackpots will bring in the addicts!
Sun City was a similar exercise in developing gambling in the tribal lands of apartheid regime, which drew wealthy white gamblers into areas where planning and gambling controls did not exist.
Manchester and Salford have had casinos for years. The Supercasino is not about tables and card games, it's profits lie in the large number of slot machines which will guarantee high profit levels fed by greed. The odds on profit from slot machines for the owners are high. the Hotel development will also increase profits.
Personally I would have have thought Blackpool was the best place to allow redevelopment, the site was good and the town will regenerate without the supercasino-it has an existing casino. What Blackpool will do with its site remains to be seen but if I were a gambler(never have never will) I would watch for the Thompson family enter with proposals for the site. The Pleasure Beach and the family have been around for 100 years, they bring in 6 million visitors a year and they have little land for expansion. Watch that Blackpool site!
Amusing aspect of the announcement was the media gathered at Blackpool and Greenwich only to discover they should have been at Sportcity!
Finally the combination of Eastlands crowds for late evening games and Revolution Series at the velodrome on same evening is difficult to manage. Add the Supercasino to the mix and interesting possibility for total gridlock exists! Somehow I don't see an efficient tramlink emerging congestion pilot or not! The existing tram seems in difficulty and the fare structure perhaps not attractive for connection to Sportcity from Main rail arrival points.

[sirarfer]

It's been 35 years since I actually lived in Manchester, although I was born there and have been able to make trips back there every three or four years, and I have to say that as much as I would like to compliment the leaders of the City Council on their efforts to transform the City, I think their efforts have been bumbling, ineffective and sometimes bizarre....what, for instance, is that Orbis building? Nobody I spoke to the last time I was there,seemed able to give me an adequate answer. Nobody had been in it and nobody seemed much interested in doing so. "Too expensive", they said, most of them, and that, I think, pretty much states the situation regarding this mega-casino. The movers and shakers can build it anywhere in Manchester that they like but I doubt if it will mean anything much to the city, and if they think that the local populace will be spending their hard-earned money there I think they will be greatly disappointed. The kind of people with enough disposable income to make the kind of place this seems intended to be, a success were never very thick on the ground around Philips Park and whatever else might have changed around there, I doubt if that has.
A High Court Judge in 1979, described the decision of an aquaintance of his to go and live in Manchester, as "wholly incomprehensible" - I have to say that I feel the same way about the decision to build this casino there too.

[Phil Blinkhorn]

Manchester Urbis Centre

Sirarfer,

I presume by the "Orbis" building you mean the Urbis building.

"Nobody I spoke to the last time I was there,seemed able to give me an adequate answer. Nobody had been in it and nobody seemed much interested in doing so. "Too expensive" they said,"

So you didn't bother to go and look for yourself? The people you spoke to hadn't bothered either? How do they know it was too expensive if they didn't know the function?

Did they mean too expensive to build, too expensive to visit? (Entrance is free)

Had they, or you, bothered to look at the web page? - obviously not or you would have got the name correct. It's easy to criticise from a standpoint of ignorance.

I haven't lived in Manchester for 20 years. I've been back regularly on business and to see family but rarely had the time to visit many of the new developments and facilities. I put that right in some measure last summer - including a visit to Urbis where I found something on display which had very personal links and which I had no idea existed.

As far as the casino goes, no-one is expecting local visitors to provide the bulk of the income - not that they will be excluded. Take a look at the visitor figures for Atlantic City, Reno and Las Vegas for instance and where the visitors originate. Of course some locals will use the casino - but what do you define as local?

What a successful casino will bring is inward tourism with job opportunities for those living in both the immediate locality and throughout the wider area and it will increase the perception of the area around the world.

Las Vegas's population grew 73% in the 1990s and the growth has not slowed this decade. Job opportunities are plentiful yet the city is recognised as having the most unionised labour force in the US. The initial draw for many tourists is The Strip but they, and others who never gamble, use the city's excellent facilities as a base for a much wider range of tourism.

As the population base has grown a large range of non-gambling, non-tourist related industries have set up in the area to serve the needs of the population adding to employment opportunities.

The attitude of the High Court judge you quote and your view of the efforts of the Council is typical of a negativity which does no service to either Manchester or the UK.

I came across it when I ran the G M Conference Office -"what good are conferences to Manchester you are just wasting money" - well £2 million of new meetings business brought in to the area in 1982, £4 million in 1984,for instance, isn't a bad return on £75,000 expenditure in 1982 and £ 85,000 in 1984.

At the very time Thatcher was handbagging jobs throughout the region meetings and conferences were helping keep Manchester people in employment in hotels, restaurants, shops, transport services and a whole raft of support services.

Again, I was living in Sussex whem Manchester made its two bids for the Olympics. Very few people there, or in London, thought there was any point in supporting Manchester - an attitude reflected by many in Manchester itself. When the consolation prize of the Commonwealth games was achieved, the "so what- what good will it do me" attitude continued.

No-one outside of the Council and the organisers of the Games cared enough to make sure the tram served Eastlands in time for the Games so Government departments were able to ignore the pleas for accelerated funding and development. Imagine if there were to be the same indifference to transport to the Olympic development in London.

No council, developer or architect will ever please everyone but people owe it to themselves to find out about what they see, learn about the broader picture and find out as much as they can about what they like and don't like so their criticism is based on real knowledge rather than blind prejudice.

Perhaps next time you will visit Urbis and see just what it offers.

[aidanorourke]

Manchester Central Library portico at night (bw)

I'd urge anyone to go and visit Urbis and see what it has to offer. A new creative director has introduced many changes, including a new and much improved website

It's true Urbis cost a lot of money, but some of Manchester's best projects cost a lot of money. One I recall caused a huge controversy at the time it was being built, people said far too much money was being spent, especially given the economic situation. That building was the Central Library.

As for casinos, I disapprove of them. In anything related to gambling, I'm puritanical and proud of it. But if other people wish to throw away their money, then I'm all in favour of it, especially if it brings economic benefits to the city, as undoubtedly it will.

I still think the super-casino would have been better located in Blackpool, but as the Bishop of Manchester RR Nigel McCullough expressed, now it's been decided, then let's work to maximise the benefits and minimise the many ill effects.

Oh, and by the way Orbis is a Polish-based travel agency!

[Phil Blinkhorn]

Orbis is also the name of one of the world's most deserving charities. See:-
www.orbis.org/

[Henry Mantell]

Originally Posted by aidanorourke

I still think the super-casino would have been better located in Blackpool, but as the Bishop of Manchester RR Nigel McCullough expressed, now it's been decided, then let's work to maximise the benefits and minimise the many ill effects.

The MEN is reporting today that 36 Mp's object to the recommendation and so a reconsideration might called for! I just wonder how the Bishop feels about the casino owner's record during the apartheid era
I notice too that on the "artists impression" of the building B of the Bang is very adjacent to it! I wonder how that is going to stand up to a construction site so close. Don't I recall some elements falling off it and a question mark about it's structural integrity?
Blackpool is lobbying hard for a reconsideration, there is the potential for judicial review so it may not be decided yet. The question of the way in which regeneration was factored remains unanswered.
Personally I think that this has become a regional hot potato and another Labour policy flagship policy is in difficulties. I am a little off thread in reminding you all that you have a few days left to join the online petition about road charging policy which has broken Downing Street records for an online petition and is currently climbing above 700,000 signatures. Another labour flagship looking doomed!
The petition may be futile in any event, The EC has a directive waiting on the issue to harmonise all road charging in the EC!

[aidanorourke]

I absolutely support the MPs who are campaigning for a review of the unfortunate decision not to approve Blackpool for the super-casino.

As for road pricing, well, that's another story! An imaginative and super-efficient public transport network would be a much better proposition.