Super-casino plan in UK set to be scrapped

Culture Secretary Andy Burnham is expected to confirm the decision to go ahead with 16 large regional casinos but drop the proposed huge gambling venue in a statement to MPs this afternoon.

It comes eight months after Prime Minister Gordon Brown declared regeneration might be a better way forward than building a supercasino at one of his first appearances as PM. And Communities Secretary Hazel Blears will publish a review of alternative measures and set out specific measures aimed at improving parts of Manchester and Blackpool.

Manchester fought off stiff competition from Blackpool and the Millennium Dome in Greenwich when it won the right to host the UK’s first supercasino in January last year.

The plans were projected to bring in some £265 million investment to a deprived part of the city and up to 2,700 direct and indirect jobs. But the scheme was put on ice months later when peers rejected it by just three votes and was then deemed "dead in the water" by Whitehall insiders following Mr Brown’s remarks.

Manchester MPs reacted with anger when the plans for a super-casino in the city were abandoned by Brown and a city business chief said it was "little short of madness".

Confirming the announcement was due on Tuesday, Brown’s spokesman said: "There is a huge difference in scale in terms of gambling opportunities in a super-casino and smaller casinos. What we said was we would work up alternative regeneration packages which did not rely on a super-casino."