BACK Blackpool... today!
That is message as the dust settles on the resort's supercasino snub.
Amazement, anger, bewilderment – the list is endless when trying to describe the sense of feeling against what many see as a gross injustice.
"Blackpool had the best case, proved it and still lost" is a sentiment shared by a town in shock at the decision to award the lucrative prize to Manchester.
Our North West neighbours were, said the CAP, the best bet on all counts - for helping assist regeneration of a poor district and as the social impact test bed for Las Vegas-style glitz and gambling.
Not so, say MPs, council leaders and Gazette readers who today made an 11th hour appeal to Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell to think again ahead of the crucial Parliamentary vote on the matter.
Blackpool will lose millions in potential regeneration revenue by the decision to hand the one-and-only licence to a modern, cosmopolitan city already having benefited from £2bn of private sector investment in the last five years.
The reason for such strong support for Blackpool's case locally comes from the 180-page CAP report – the same one which so publically damned the resort's bid.
It stated the casino was not enough to boost Blackpool's fortunes, would not be instrumental in its rebirth and claimed Blackpool was not in terminal decline.
The Fylde's four MPs have branded the Casino Advisory Panel report as littered with "inconsistencies" and "contradictions".
They have accused the panel of missing the point when it came to assessing the "catalystic potential" of the super casino to trigger further massive investment in Blackpool.
They also argue the decision to locate the development in a residential area of Manchester is completely at odds with previous recommendations that such premises are not located close to people's homes.
Blackpool Council chief executive Steve Weaver and his team are now formulting their official response to the panel's ruling.
But in Westminster, the Fylde's four MPs are already calling for a full debate on the issue.
Blackpool North and Fleetwood MP Joan Humble said: "The panel report says a single casino will not regenerate our town, but they are ignoring the effect the casino would have on pulling in other private sector investment to Blackpool.
"We have always referred to the casino as a catalyst yet the panel doesn't take that as an issue.
"Of particular concern to me is the fact that they don't believe our proposal would represent the best test for social impact because the customers would be visitors who would then go home.
"But that was always one of the most positive parts of our proposals that a destination casino in a resort like Blackpool would have a minimal effect on the impact of problem gambling."
Blackpool South MP Gordon Marsden accused the panel of systematically failing to adhere to the remit given to them.
He said: "There are serious questions to be asked about the inconsistencies within the report.
"Firstly, Blackpool is criticised in that it wouldn't be able to handle so-called doorstep gambling because the proposal site was in a residential area, and yet the committee seem to have passed without comment the fact they are proposing to site it in one of the most deprived areas of East Manchester.
"Secondly, they appear to have paid no attention whatsoever to the instructions Parliament gave them to look at the regional context of the development. We had the support of the Northwest Regional Development Agency but that seems to have been ignored."
Fylde MP Michael Jack added: "The thing that surprised me was the emphasis given to the social implications of gambling and therefore the reference to Manchester as the best test bed, which was a fundamental shift from the main point which I think everyone thought was the impact of this kind of development on regeneration.
"I think there will be many people in Blackpool, in the council and on the bid team, who will be wondering how the panel seems to have changed on this.
"It's disappointing because it seems to me the panel has moved the goal posts away from regeneration to the social impact of large scale gambling on a local community, and I wonder whether Manchester is the best place to do this in."
Wyre MP Ben Wallace secured an agreement from Mrs Jowell that she would receive a delegation of MPs from the Fylde coast to discuss the report, a meeting which it is hoped will take place next week.
He said: "One of the biggest contradictions in the report refers to doorstep gambling.
"When the joint committee on the draft gambling bill made its recommendations, they clearly said that the regional casino should be in a resort like Blackpool. Even Labour's own think tank, the institute for public policy said the regeneration benefits would be greatest in Blackpool. The secretary of state can change her mind, she is not bound by the recommendation."
And the support for Blackpool has come from all sides of the Commons with many MPs already questioning the panel's recommendation.
The Tories gambling spokeswoman, Bromsgrove MP Julie Kirkbride said: "The choice of Manchester heralds the arrival of doorstep gambling across the UK's towns and cities.
"Can Tessa Jowell not recognise, even at this late stage, the superior claim of places such as Blackpool as a resort destination casino, which would be an added boost to tourism?"
Blackpool Council leader Coun Roy Fisher said it was vital Blackpool's voice was heard.
He said: "We only have a short time to make a difference by make our feelings known to Government and on Monday will be meeting with local MPs prior to their meeting with the Secretary of State Tessa Jowell MP, which understand is planned for next week.
"By then we hope to have a ground swell of support to show her the strength of feeling here Blackpool. We will also be rallying support from key partners and regional allies along with holding meetings with stakeholders but the local voice is very important.
"The Gazette has always supported our casino aspirations – as part of the masterplan mix – and we are therefore pleased that they have thrown their considerable weight into this campaign."
The CAP declined The Gazette's request for an interview.

Who is supporting the campaign

THE Gazette's Sign Up For Blackpool campaign has already had massive backing.
Doug Garrett, chief executive of regeneration company ReBlackpool, said: "I do think the panel got it wrong.
"I think they have failed to understand what Blackpool could have offered. It was not just about the casinos, but a much wider regeneration project. It was almost as if they set out with a city in mind and Blackpool was the only one of the seven shortlisted places that was not a city.
"The CAP seemed hung up on the issue of the number of people in the casinos catchment area. Manchester has a catchment area of around 20m people and we have much fewer than that."
Tourism consultant and former Leisure Parcs chief Marc Etches said: "The panel has never truly understood Blackpool's vision.
"It is the worst of all outcomes. To award the licence to Manchester not only contradicts the North West Development Agency's preference for Blackpool, it means the town is now unlikely to attract a licence in any 'second wave'. This recommendation cuts Blackpool off at the knees commercially."
Dennis Taylor, chief executive of the Lancashire Economic Partnership, said the decision was "illogical" and "ill-conceived".
He added: "As an economic partnership we will stand shoulder to shoulder with Blackpool to see if we can either get the decision reversed, or come to some sort of an agreement in which Blackpool gets the shot in the arm it so badly needs."
Coun John Coombes, leader of Fylde Council, said Blackpool was "cheated" out of becoming the UK's first super casino.
He added: "It feels as though everyone has been kicked in the teeth.
"The casino would have benefited the Fylde as well as Blackpool, but it seems that the CAP has gone with the easy decision of choosing a city which has already had vast amounts of regeneration money thrown at it."
Coun Russell Forsyth, leader of Wyre Council, said: "We support Blackpool in its fight as they lobby against the decision."
Colleen McLaughlin, regional gaming academy manager at Blackpool and The Fylde College, said: "From a regeneration perspective CAP got it wrong. The Northwest Development Agency came out in support of Blackpool's bid and when the people of Manchester were asked last year, they said Blackpool should get it."
Gareth Kennedy, director of business development at Blackpool International Airport, said: "The news is a devastating blow – and from a regeneration perspective the news could not have been worse. I don't see how the panel can justify the decision."

The contradictions in the report

n Referring to Blackpool, the report states: "The fact that most customers would come from outside Blackpool and have to travel would be a deterrent to ambient problem gambling", adding "but it is close to some of the poorest residential areas of the town, and so much care would have to be taken if local problems of ambient gambling were to be avoided."
In contrast, the proximity of one of Manchester's poorest neighbourhoods to its proposed site is seen as a positive aspect of that city's bid.
The report says: "The fact that substantial deprivation remains in the area despite progress in this field, including the Commonwealth Games and other activities, does, however lead us to urge that continued efforts are made to ensure local regeneration benefits."
* The report accepts that the super-casino is intended as the "driver" of Blackpool's vision but then says the "one casino proposed" while being a useful tool, would not "reverse decline". The conclusion appears not to consider the casino as a catalyst for further investment.
* On measuring the social impact of a casino, the panel says that as Blackpool would draw its custom from a wide area, it would make tracing the effects "difficult if not impossible."
It also says it would not be easy to measure the city-wide social impact in Manchester as a whole, but says "this would be less true, however, of East Manchester, where it would be relatively easy to adduce impacts, favourable and unfavourable, in this very deprived area of the city."
* The decision to put the supercasino in one of the most deprived residential areas of Manchester also contradicts the views of the Joint Committee on the Draft Gambling Bill which made recommendations ahead of the liberalisation of the laws.
The all-party committee, chaired by John Greenway, referred to a "vision for a limited number of leisure destination casinos, offering a range of entertainment, sports, arts and cultural facilities to which people would be prepared to travel."
Its findings included "grave concerns about locating regional/leisure destination casinos in areas in close proximity to where people live and work."
In a response to government published in July 2004 it added; "While we accept that planning policy is established in line with the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's wider objectives, we believe that the overriding objective of the Government's proposals in this area should be that of controlling access to Category A machines by limiting the number of premises that can have then and ensuring, so far as possible, that they are not located in close proximity to residential properties."