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Casino: the great betrayal
THE B In The Bang is for Blackpool – stung by the decision to site the country's first supercasino in monied Manchester. The B in the Bang is for Blight – real blight of the type seen here ... in rising unemployment, social deprivation, poor housing, transience, ill health ... and not in the rapidly regenerating suburbs of the big city.
The B in the Bang is also for Betrayal – the sense felt at seeing yet another major moneyspinner head to neighbouring Manchester.
Just look at the cards they already hold: the Labour Conference, the big star performers who used to play our Opera House and Grand who prefer the city's theatres, the clubbers opting for more stylish surrounds.
And now the site of the nation's first supercasino. A lifeline lost to this town– and now situated so close it will drain Blackpool's economic lifeblood even further.
Another reason to visit the city rather than the seaside.
At the end of play, the Government has the say on who gets the big one.
But will it make any difference? Cynics argue Whitehall has most to gain from a supercasino in an already successful city.
Just look at the billions to be gained from gambling revenue. Especially since bans on public smoking may ultimately drain tax coffers of their nicotine fix.
But if Blackpool feels stung by the B in this Bang from the Casino Advisory Panel, it's nothing to the bewilderment felt by Beswick.
Never heard of it? It's right at the very heart of the district which is to be regenerated with supercasino cash. About a mile east of Manchester's bustling (and regenerated) city centre.
To be more precise, it's right at the very heart of the district which is already BEING regenerated – while this resort languishes in the doldrums.
There are signs of regeneration everywhere: in the new build, the refurbishment of old property, the luxury car dealerships, the public art, the sports facilities, giant retail parks – including the third biggest Asda in Europe – and more.
Cap that? The CAP already has...
The site earmarked for the supercasino, although it's far from a done deal for the would-be developer leading the running, looks like a wasteland. It's about the only area that does. Don't be fooled by the TV images of boarded up shops and derelict mills and housing. They are being refurbished, rebuilt, regenerated. Some are being swept aside to make way for new-build.
Look at the Manchester City Stadium nearby: 90m to build, most of the cash from the Lottery Sports Fund, and now the centrepiece of SportCity (built for the Commonwealth Games), a 104.2m investment in sporting venues in the immediate area.
The area now known as Eastlands used to be the old Clayton district which, like neighbouring Beswick, was at the heart of industrial Manchester.
Locals, like Arthur Merriman, who grew up and worked locally, will tell you of the big wireworks once here, along with engineering companies, mills and coal shafts.
All that heavy duty industrial northern heritage, fringing the canal, now dressed up as the "waterfront" by luxury apartment sellers, has gone, sacrificed with our steel, shipbuilding industries and cotton trade.
The area dipped into decline until major investment came along in the 1990s and "Naughties". This is BC. As in BEFORE Casino. Asda's car park is on the site of the coal shaft. The stadium is where the wireworks were.
Arthur reckons Blackpool had the better case for the supercasino.
"It would have been the best location," he says. "And you needed it more. You could have coped with it better."
Partners Jane Fleming and David Woods, from Collyhurst Village, are worried at the risk of rising crime.
"The police can't cope as it is. We won't see benefits. Unemployed people won't get work. Others will just gamble away what little they've got. The site's a wasteland but it was just a matter of time before something good came along, with Eastlands doing so well."
Wasteland, Eastlands, I'm tempted to tell them of driving along a nigh-deserted promenade, the oppressive gloom of a town in darkness, the TV teams and visiting Press having deserted Blackpool faster than you could say Beswick or Bust, after the shock announcement.
Stepping past the tumbleweed, with a wary eye for ParkRite patrols, I parked outside the ONLY souvenir stall open on the Golden Mile, after 6pm, to buy something to identify me as Blackpudlian to Beswickites. It stocked false boobs and worse, but no kiss-me-quick hats or sticks of rock.
"We don't stock up till Easter," said the chap at the counter. "No point. Just stags and hens right now. We may not reopen. The fella who runs this has been here for 10 years and says the last three years have been hell. This is like the last nail in the coffin."
They're not building coffins in Beswick. The builders are too busy on other things, indeed they were long before the
supercasino announcement. I photograph some people restoring property on Bradford Road, one of the grot spots getting the tarted-up treatment.
"Oi, you think we're benefit cheats?" one shouts. "You DSS?" "No, Press," I shout back. "From Blackpool." They laugh. "Losers!"
Were I a betting woman, I'd have staked my all on Blackpool's odds to win the supercasino – on social and economic need alone.
No B in the Bang super sculpture here in Blackpool.
No massive Manchester City super stadium and SportCity.
No Velodome for cyclists.
No ginormous Asda either, doubling as a haven for hacks chewing over bacon butties and the fat of the land with colleagues and where I note national tabloid writers cribbing from both The Gazette and Manchester Evening News front pages.
"It's been mad," says the waitress serving coffee. "I have to keep showing them where the supercasino's going to be. I'd have rather Blackpool got it. But tell them the town's too expensive for visitors."
There's money in the air here, for all the semi-dereliction about the canalside mills, and boarded up buildings, barbed wire walls, and tatty terraced streets.
Former Blackpool woman Christine Hutchinson, an Ashton civil servant who's on strike for the day, is both sad for Blackpool and pleased for Manchester.
"Well, for starters, property prices will rise," she says. "And there will be more jobs. But I really love Blackpool and feel so sorry for it. You needed it more than we did. But now this is the place to be."
Within hours of the announcement, the phones were buzzing at one local property agency with a huge stake in the market.
Living Sports City is selling 115 luxury waterfront/canalside "contemporary one and two bedroomed apartments". Firm orders for four were placed. Sales staff are jubilant. "It's like winning the lottery," says one.
So this could have been ours. Instead it's gone to an area where multi million-pound investment is bringing massive improvements to housing, environment, health, sport, education (for it's a government education action zone), leisure and shopping.
Drive around and you find parks, big and small, and playgrounds.
Good transport links too. To add insult to injury, a new Metrolink line – nothing like our aged tramway system (for all its facelift) – will soon bring frequent speedy trams to the area.
Christine's partner, Dubliner Denis Hudson, a taxi driver with local firm Hastings cabs, is so delighted with the boom that he takes me on a free tour of the area.
"That's all new," he explains, pointing to a row of pristine houses, "and that's being refurbished, and that lot's coming down and being rebuilt better, and the mills are being restored, imagine their value for housing now! Yes, the place is just buzzing.
"To be sure, I feel sorry for Blackpool .We both love the town, and go there often, and it's still the best at what it does, but this supercasino means more work for me, and a better future for Manchester. But, aw, come on, things could be worst. Look at Rhyl!"
So what do I owe him?
"Nothing, darling – reckon we probably owe you..."
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Weather for Blackpool
Wednesday 30 May 2012
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