by Jane Roberts
Operators are looking at sites for casinos in some 20 towns following the government’s latest proposals for deregulating gambling.
The draft proposals include adding eight more locations to the 13 new areas announced this year, allowing existing venues to expand facilities, and relaxing advertising bans and membership rules.
Duncan Locke of Grimley, who advises Rank subsidiary Grosvenor Casinos said sites would be considered at the new locations of Bath, Eastbourne, Exeter, Harrogate, Norwich, Telford and York, plus London Docklands.
Capital & Provident could be one of the first developers to benefit. The company made a planning application two months ago for a 268-bed hotel with casino at South Quay on the Isle of Dogs, E14. It is marketing the site through Savills and Kerr Forster.
But Locke said that casino operators would be “unlikely . . . to commit to a lease or a property purchase until they have certainty regarding the statutory instrument required.”
Meanwhile, John Garrett, Rank’s recreational division managing director, launched a direct attack on the proposals. Speaking at a leisure conference organised by Donaldsons, he lambasted “this gutless government” for the limited scale of deregulation which he said was in danger of being “too little, too late”. He said it failed to tackle “the central problem”, namely the size of the National Lottery which has just been allowed to run twice a week and has no advertising restrictions “which distorts competition”.
- Village Roadshow, the Australian company which operates megaplex cinemas, has announced it is to take a 50% stake in Warner Bros’ UK and German cinema chains. Castlemore Securities has agreed to prelet a 7,432m2 (80,000 sq ft) 20-screen cinema to the company at its Cleppa Park leisure scheme in Newport, Wales.
