Forget Las Vegas - it's viva Stranraer as casino bid gamble pays off for town

STRANRAER is not a town that indulges in hyperbole. A place with just 10,000 people, its main claim to fame is the unremarkable boast that it hosts Scotland's second-busiest passenger terminal.

But yesterday, amid the hoopla of the announcement over Britain's first supercasino, Stranraer, very quietly, took on the title of the new gambling capital of Scotland. As the recriminations over Glasgow's failure to secure the supercasino licence began, the Casino Advisory Panel - the body set up to decide on a slew of new licences - announced that the Dumfries and Galloway town would lead Scotland into a new age of gambling, granting it the right to open a "small casino".

The panel said that Stranraer, a town where income lags 20 per cent behind the Scottish average - would offer "a useful test of social impact in the context of the transformation of a port to a resort".

It also agreed that most of the punters would not be locals.

"Operator market interest would tend to support the hypotheses that a casino at Stranraer would attract custom from Northern Ireland and in that respect it is a particularly interesting opportunity to test the potential for attracting casino tourism from there," the report said.

Stranraer will now have the right to open a casino with a floorspace of up to 2000sq m. There will be up to 80 jackpot machines offering maximum prizes of 4,000. The casino is one part of a major regeneration plan for Stranraer which includes proposals for a marina. The town's ferry port is moving eight miles away.

There are no clear figures as to how many jobs the casino will generate, at worst only 15, at best 100, but Tony Fitzpatrick, head of economic regeneration at Dumfries and Galloway Council insisted the impact would be much greater.

"We are trying to reposition the town as a tourism and leisure destination," said Mr Fitzpatrick.

Council convener Tommy Sloan said: "I don't want Stranraer just to be a place where people come to retire. There needs to be an incentive for young people to want to stay in the area."

Most would agree that Stranraer needs a boost. The high street has an Argos, New Look, Tesco and Currys. But the impression is less of a lively coastal town and more of a place that is marking time.

But on the streets of the town yesterday local opinion was less enthusiastic at the prospect of a new casino. Eric McLean, owner of The Sports Shop, said: "I don't think it will be enough to persuade people to stop in Stranraer and the fact that we're losing the ferry port will mean there'll be even less reason for them to come here in the first place."

"This is a sleepy wee place. If you look around, there are empty shops all over the place."

One customer in Mr McLean's shop claimed that the plan was a "white elephant": "What they need to do is to tackle the roads into Stranraer first. At the moment they are terrible windy things and they discourage people from coming here.

"If you ask me, the council has its priorities wrong."

There was perhaps an equal level of shock in Manchester, the panel's top choice for hosting a Las Vegas-style "supercasino", which was widely predicted to be beaten by Blackpool or the Millennium Dome.

Manchester, a 16-1 shot, will now play host to a venue for up to 1,250 unlimited-jackpot gaming machines. Manchester's bid organisers said it would regenerate a poor area in the east of the city, promising a 265 million investment and 2,700 direct and indirect jobs. The casino would be based at Sportcity in the Beswick area.

Licences were also granted for new "large" casinos to Great Yarmouth, Hull, Newham, Middlesbrough, Solihull, Milton Keynes, Leeds and Southampton. There will also be seven other "small" casinos in Bath and North-east Somerset, East Lindsey, Luton, Scarborough, Swansea, Torbay and Wolverhampton.

Prime Minister Tony Blair's official spokesman stressed that the Casino Advisory Panel was independent of government and had made its own assessment of the strength of the bids.

Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell promised that MPs would have a vote on the one super casino and 16 smaller ones. There would also be no additional casinos allowed before the next election.

"Las Vegas is not coming to Great Britain... British casinos will be subject to new controls, which will be the strictest in the world," she said.

LUCKY NUMBERS?

10,500 - The population of Stranraer, of whom 2,189 are adults with no qualifications.

1,235 - The number of households without a car.

169,998 - Typical house price in the area (the Scottish average is 126,639).

33 - The number of points separating Stranraer FC from the top team in the second division.

1617 - The year Stranraer became a royal burgh.

60 - Population density per square mile (the Scottish average is 168).

5 - The number of primary schools.

1.5 - Quickest journey time, in hours, to Belfast by sea.

2 - Quickest journey time, in hours, to Glasgow by rail.

2003 - The year that Stena Line announced plans to transfer its operations to a new port north of Cairnryan.

1 - The number of songs referencing Stranraer (Cap in Hand by The Proclaimers: "I can understand why Stranraer lie so lowly, They could save a lot of points by signing Hibs goalie").