City Of Culture Yet To Embrace Champagne Super Casino

There are now three firm offers to develop a regional casino in Merseyside, but still the local council is remaining vociferous in it's attempts to block any development in order to protect the city's residents from the temptation of gambling.

A £50m blueprint to transform the existing Leo casino has been submitted to Liverpool council but is likely to face tough opposition with previous plans from MGM Mirage and Las Vegas Sands seemingly failing to sway the local government.

The expanded Leo casino would be able to cater for hundreds more gamblers with bars, restaurants, banqueting facilities for 500, a conference centre to hold 1000 and a nightclub all being added, creating some 1000 new jobs.

Owner Amaury Taittinger, part of the French champagne family, said the development would be modeled on 'classy' European nightspots and would attract people from all over the North West.

Taittinger's company, Hotel and Investment Management, wants to bring this "continental style of leisure development to Liverpool" in time for the city to be crowned European Capital of Culture in 2008.

"The new extended casino would be modeled on the European style proved and tested over the past 50 years in France, rather than the brash American style" he said.

But as well as ticking all the right council boxes, the plans must also gain government backing and with only eight super casinos to be allowed to open across the UK, only one is likely to be developed in the North West.

Councillor Paul Clein, one of three councillors to oppose the development of a super casino in the city, has already made his feeling's public. "This is not the right sort of development for a city like this," he said referring to regional casinos as a whole. "It is more appropriate in a place like Blackpool, were you would expect the vast majority of business to come from visitors in the area. In Liverpool, we have a vast catchment area of around 1.5m people. Most of the punters would be local and that is a different sort of operation completely. We are not saying super casinos are wrong for everywhere, but they are wrong for Liverpool."

Las Vegas Sands has promised to inject £75m towards the cost of a shared stadium for Everton and Liverpool football clubs. However slim the chance of unification between the two Merseyside clubs at board level, the uproar fro the fans could well be enough to prevent any casino project hitting the back of the net.

Without a strong voice from local government to argue it's case, the future City of Culture looks unlikely to wrestle a regional licence from the grasp of either Manchester or Blackpool.