Michael Taylor travels to Blackpool to meet the men with the plan for a Las Vegas-style casino in the resort
If you drive to Blackpool and look around the shiny new airport terminal building, you cannot fail to be impressed. And looking at the expensively and lavishly compiled plans for the new regeneration plan you think it makes sense. Listen to Doug Garrett, chief executive of ReBlackpool, the urban regeneration company driving the plans for the resort and you are energised and inspired by his vision, delivered in a firm, but passionate Ulster burr.You know the core of the town centre has issues. You remember it's a bit tatty along the seafront, but the man has a plan, so you believe it.
And then, out of interest you drive up to the promenade, turn right, go past the Pleasure Beach, the guest houses, the arcades and the takeaways and shops. And the lap dancing bars, the all-day drinking dens, more tatty guest houses and you notice the sparsity of the people around the prom, even on a sunny day in September.
You mention this to someone who has travelled by train and a tale of even greater horror then follows - drunks, druggies and shops that look like they've never had a customer in years. It looks like a town that has given up.
But it hasn't of course. It makes you appreciate the magnitude of the exercise that Blackpool faces and you can't but applaud the boldness of what Garrett is aiming to drive through.
So, in one sense, Garrett and Paul Whelan, the chairman of Blackpool Airport, are right. Serious decay needs radical surgery. A casino, therefore, is of significant size, scale and ambition to deliver that - the rest can follow.
"We want to make Blackpool a better place," says Whelan, whose company City Hopper, has invested substantially in the airport, and who has thrown himself into Blackpool's efforts and joined the ReBlackpool board.
"But we have to get the product right, starting with Preston station, making sure we get the taxis licensed properly to get everyone focused on making Blackpool better and to be proud of what we're trying to do. Blackpool has a bright future and we want to be part of it."
The centre of the whole scheme he is driving is for a casino: "It will have such a dramatic stimulus, making it a hospitality venue. It's not just about the casino, but the whole visitor economy."
He was speaking in the wake of a visit from Government's Casino Advisory Panel, which was touring the potential sites for the UK's first supercasino, for which there is only one available licence. The panel visited Blackpool to carry out an examination of the merits of the town's proposals for a regional casino and to take evidence from town leaders who have designed and planned Blackpool's bid.
According to Whelan, Blackpool is the obvious choice over the Millenium Dome and Glasgow, the other likely frontrunner. The casino has the potential to massively increase visitor numbers to the town and to regenerate. A recent survey, undertaken by research company Populus, found that nearly 14 million adults say they would be more likely to visit Blackpool if it had a supercasino. It was also the first choice for Londoners.
For Garrett there is no point in a plan B and he says the resort has cleverly not done a deal with a single operator - a decision the team behind the Dome's bid will be bitterly regretting, now that John Prescott's links with tycoon Phil Anschutz have caused such a public scandal. "The Casino Advisory Panel can have been left in no doubt of the sense of ambition in our town. The excellence of our plans has created interest the world over and regeneration experts are coming to Blackpool to see at first hand exciting, cutting-edge regeneration and design projects," says Garrett.
He also brushes off objections from arcade operator Noble to the plans: "It's purely self-preservation," he says. "The cranes are here in Blackpool, the work has begun, the sea defence walls are being built and we're moving to make it an all-year-round resort."
But then here's the question: what if they lose? Without blinking, Garrett says it's not one he's contemplating.
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