Gordon Brown has made a u-turn on casino plans for the UK, announcing that 16 small casinos are to be given the go-ahead.
Last summer, the Prime Minister was praised by church groups and gambling charities for reviewing the 2005 gambling act, which would have allowed Las Vegas style gambling to come to the UK in the form of eight large, eight small, and one massive regional gambling center in Manchester.
The so called 'super-casino' will not be allowed to open, but the smaller casinos have been allowed to proceed. Council members in Manchester were upset by the news, as they had hoped that the super-casino could be used to regenerate the run-down eastern area of the city.
Shadow Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt commented “The inconsistency of this policy means that no one really thinks the Government's review, which was announced amid great fanfare, was anything more than a political stunt.”
The local authorities that had won casino licenses were asked if they still wished to go ahead with the plans. They confirmed that they were still interested, so plans for small casinos in Leeds, Southamption, Middlesbrough, Great Yarmouth, Hull, Solihull, Milton Keynes and Newham will go ahead, along with larger casinos in Bath, Somerset, Scarborough, Dumfries and Galloway, Swansea, Wolverhampton, Luton, Torbay and East Lindsey.
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