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Poker.co.uk - Poker News Archive
Friday 2nd February 2007 Manchester Begins Hunt for Super-casino Investors
Manchester City Council, Tuesday’s victor in the contest to host the UK's first super-casino, has insisted it would run a fair and open competition to find a commercial partner.
In July 2004, the city announced that Kerzner International and Ask Developments had won a competition to build a super-casino in the heart of the city.
With the government’s subsequent decision to restrict the UK to just one super-casino, however, the Council terminated the competition.
Rival US operators, some of whom lost out in the competition, said yesterday that Manchester would be hard-pressed to prove a rerun competition would be open and fair if the same developers were chosen this time around. Sir Richard Leese, council leader, said it could still hold a 'full and fair tender' as required by law for the £265m development, with up to 1,250 unlimited jackpot slot machines in at least 5,000 square metres. 'I am sure we can go out and have a fair and open competition,' he said at a press conference.
Manchester city council strongly prefers a site on land that it owns in the east of the city, next to sports stadia built for the 2002 Commonwealth Games. But it acknowledged it would entertain proposals for other sites.
In Westminster, there is relief that the choice of Manchester by the Casino Advisory Panel would be more politically acceptable to MPs than Greenwich, which was embroiled in allegations that the government had close links with its bid partners.
Source: OnlineCasinoNews
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