Super Casino Shortlist Announced

A shortlist of eight possible sites for Britain's first Las Vegas-style "super casino" has been announced.

Of 27 applicants, London's Wembley Stadium and Millennium Dome, Cardiff, Blackpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Sheffield and Glasgow are on the list.

Only one site will eventually get the go-ahead for a super casino with unlimited jackpots.

A further 16 licences for small and large casinos with jackpot limits of £4,000 will also be granted.

The Casino Advisory Panel's final decision is expected to be handed to ministers in December 2006.

More than 60 local authorities applied for the small and large casino licences.

These include Bath and North East Somerset, Restormel in Cornwall and Torbay, Devon, in the West Country and Bournemouth, Brighton, Hastings and Southampton on the south coast.

Chelmsford, Dartford, Canterbury, Luton, Milton Keynes and Thurrock are on the short-list from the Home Counties, along with the London Borough of Newham.

Short-listed in the West Midlands are Dudley, Wolverhampton, and Birmingham's NEC, in Solihull, while in eastern England, East Lindsey, Great Yarmouth, Hull, Leicester, Mansfield, North East Lincolnshire, Peterborough and Scarborough make the list.

Short-listed in the north of England are Middlesbrough, South Tyneside and Leeds. Also on the list are Dumfries and Galloway, Sefton and Swansea.

The local authorities which applied for super casino licences but were rejected were Leeds, Southampton, Chesterfield, Coventry, Dartford, Dudley, Great Yarmouth, Havering, Hull, Ipswich, Middlesbrough, Midlothian, Newport, Solihull (NEC site), Southend-on-Sea, Sunderland, Thurrock, Wakefield and West Dunbartonshire.

Richard Leese, leader of Manchester City Council, said: "We are delighted that the independent panel has endorsed our assessment that Manchester has proved to be a robust location for a regional casino."

Ted Richards, leader of Solihull Council which backed the failed Birmingham NEC bid, said: "I cannot believe this decision. Our proposal was such a strong one. A potential site that surely cannot be matched anywhere. This defies belief."

Social and regeneration impacts will be considered by the Casino Advisory Panel in making its recommendations.

Panel chairman Professor Stephen Crow said: "I know that our decisions will cause disappointment to some, not least to authorities who had looked to their casino proposal as a means of alleviating severe problems of deprivation or even improving social conditions and meeting the need for economic regeneration. But the competition has been very strong and so it is inevitable that some proposals, good enough though they may be in themselves, have yet to yield before more powerfully justified cases."

He said those who had made it onto either list still faced further "rigorous examination".

Regional planning bodies are being invited to submit their views on the proposed sites by 28 June, as are members of the public.

The government originally suggested there should be eight super casinos, but after widespread opposition and claims they would lead to a big increase in gambling addiction, the plans were scaled down to just one in order to save the Gambling Bill.