From next Tuesday the eight shortlisted local authorities selected for further examination for a regional casino will be visited by the Casino Advisory Panel (CAP). ‘Examinations in Public’ events have been scheduled between 29 August and 8 September and Brent, home of Wembley Stadium and where the new council has been considering cancelling its application, will be the first to be examined. Blackpool, still some people’s favourite contender for the regional casino, will be the last on the list to be visited.

CAP will be in London to discuss the controversy-ridden project for the Millennium Dome site, on Wednesday, 30 August. According to the statement submitted to CAP by Greenwich Council on 10 August, the site is under construction and not a hypothetical scheme. This would allow the regional casino to be operational quickly and, because the Greenwich Peninsula is Europe’s largest and most ambitious regeneration programme, offers a strategically significant and dynamic location that would be ‘a unique testing bed for social impact.’

The readiness of the proposed casino in Greenwich has caused renewed criticism. The fact that construction has started before the public hearings is raising questions about possible preferential treatment - Greenwich already heads the shortlist after preliminary consideration by CAP. Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG), according to a report in The Guardian, says the construction of the casino, which would become an integral part of The O₂ site if selected for the regional casino, is necessary in order to complete other aspects of the development.

In reply to a query raised by CAP over the detail and certainty of proposed facilities at The O₂, Greenwich Council stated that the timing of the project meant that AEG had to commit to it before the Gambling Act was passed and, as more regional casinos had been planned, it had not been an uncertain prospect. The Council points out that due to cost efficiencies and construction logistics, the casino shell was created as part of a back of house area at an early stage in the project.

If CAP does select Greenwich as the location of Britain’s first super casino, which in many ways would offer the best test of social impact, then AEG would bring additional elements to the site. One of these would be the Tutankhamun exhibit, to which AEG holds the worldwide rights. When the exhibition was staged in Los Angeles it attracted 937,000 visitors, including many children, and its estimated economic impact was US$150 million. The exhibition has been provisionally scheduled for The O₂ for November 2007 before returning permanently to Cairo. (E-08.23.06)

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