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Remember Manchester's celebrations of the supercasino that never was – and Blackpool's complete and utter despair at missing out?
Behind the scenes, one man with all to play for had gambled all he owned on the throw of that die – and lost – in common with the rest of the resort.
But would-be entrepreneur Roy Chadwick had a Plan B. When property values plummeted and he lost his life savings in plans for a jazz cafe he picked himself – and a pen – up and began to write a novel. About a supercasino, and a resort, and a broken dream.
And while he takes pains to stress his debut novel Off Balance (available online at WH Smith's e-book store) is complete and utter fiction, he rather hopes local readers will help make it an online e-book success so it goes into print in the conventional way.
Roy's Blackpool is a darker place than the real thing. Shades of Red Ridings colour the interplay between the key characters with corruption, drugs, vice, money laundering, people smuggling, and dodgy developers all threaded into the thwarted campaign.
His heroine's a detective from the Met, Kay Stewart, exiled from the capital for asking too many questions about a neighbourhood renewal scheme. She's banished from New Scotland Yard to Blackpool where she teams up with a decent and honourable investigative journalist (fiction, remember...) and a lawyer of real integrity (ditto) when her path crosses that of the same baddie, a ruthless developer, after the death of a tattoo artist leads to a masterplan to
recreate Blackpool as the Vegas of the North.
Roy adds: "Kay is forced to come to terms with the frailty of her own identity and hitherto unknown secrets of her childhood. The full might of corruption, and the developer's hold over prominent people and institutions, is launched at Kay, and her allies, as they attempt to stop him. They need all their ingenuity to fight back.
Well, it could only be fiction, couldn't it ... so welcome to Roy's Plan B.
In real life, Roy, who has moved on from Blackpool to work as a Citizens Advice
Bureau volunteer in Morecambe, says he sold all he had to invest in Blackpool, a town down on its luck, but on the up and up thanks to THAT casino – when the only real contender was considered to be the Millennium Dome.
"I still wonder whether the current Government may revive the idea – because there's never been a proper explanation why they dropped the whole notion for the country."
The decision, little more than a year after Manchester had celebrated, to formally abandon the idea of building Britain's first Vegas-style supercasino, yet proceed with 16 large regional casinos, may have proved unpopular at the time – support for The Gazette's own lobby for the resort's bid revealed 91 per cent in favour from a poll conducted.
But the announcement, made by fast rising Labour star David Burnham, then Culture Secretary, in February 2008, may have been in the nick of time – as the bubble burst shortly after for the global economy.
What impact would the economic meltdown have had on the development – let alone the hoped for punters? Could Manchester or Blackpool have sustained a supercasino resort or would it have languished like so many incomplete housing estates, and office blocks, retail units and leisure centres right now? Who knows? But one thing is clear, recession or no recession, it would have been a gamble.
Roy doesn't consider himself a gambling man. He thought a jazz cafe was a surefire winner, still does, and he's still determined to never say die – even with the dice loaded against him.
His business venture, a Jazzsong Cafe, was doomed, like the supercasino, to never make it off the drawing board. It bankrupted him.
To that point, four years ago, he had worked as a jobbing writer among other things. This is his first completed, and published, novel.
"I edited internal marketing publications and wrote newsletters and books for, among others, industrial and commercial energy buyers and landlords. Back in the '70s and '80s I was involved in the creation and consolidation of the financial services sector, a scenario that helped me understand better than most, the process of energy and utility privatisation in the 1990s and the relationship between markets and government.
"I also co-authored a children's book on the history of tunnels with a civil engineer."
Roy also ran a multi-racial youth club in Paddington, a community centre on a Labour housing estate in a Tory stronghold, and campaigned on behalf of asylum seekers and disadvantaged people in Salford, before volunteering his services to the Citizen's Advice Bureau.
But his most public failure was born of his private passion, jazz. "I tried to keep vocal jazz alive as a promoter – unsuccessfully!"
Four years ago, following his divorce, and with his children grown up, he sold his house in Salford to move to Blackpool and finance his dream of opening a restaurant, specialising in vocal jazz, in the town centre, attracted by the affordability of property, ongoing regeneration, and the promise of better times to come.
"The town was buzzing with the prospect of renewal through a supercasino, it was a town with a long season and a shortage of entertainment venues, of this sort, and interesting restaurants." It fitted the bill but the odds were against him.
"There were problems with building and finance and the dream died before the premises could open."
The rise and fall ran in tandem with the death of Blackpool's supercasino dream, with so much riding on the success of that project, too, and no apparent Plan B to fall back upon when the supercasino panel, who appeared to loftily disdain Blackpool, announced the project would go to Manchester. But the city's celebrations proved premature – the red carpet pulled from under the feet of wouldbe supercasino punters before the vision could take shape.
The Government had second thoughts, ostensibly on the back of escalating social deprivation and Gordon Brown's conviction that this would be compounded by plonking a supercasino in the midst of one of Manchester's most blighted areas. Blackpool, critics argued, had been the better bet all along, with existing infrastructure to support a gaming economy, and making the most of allied tourism and leisure facilities, including the much vaunted purpose built conference centre. In the event, the Government played banker, and took all.
And for Roy it marked a personal tragedy. "Blackpool lost its bid and supercasinos disappeared from the political agenda without explanation. Property values collapsed and I was bankrupted."
But from that, four years down the line, Off Balance was born. "It's fiction," he stresses, "I've invented my own version of why the bid failed and supercasinos failed. It draws upon my understanding of the dangers of private provision of public services, and my research into the history and influence of Las Vegas."
It's been published, this month, as an worldwide e-book via mye books, including via WH Smiths Ebooks store (at 7.99) but if successful, online, will go to print in the traditional manner. "At least I feel I haven't walked away from the table empty handed," concludes Roy. "And I still think there's all to play for ... if the current Government considers reviving the proposal."
* Off Balance by Roy Chadwick, ISBN 9781907759192, available from W H Smith Ebo
oks store (7.99 http://ebooks.whsmith.co.uk).
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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