Excuse the pun, but casinos are a bit of a gamble at the moment. Just look around the country at those shiny licenses everyone fought tooth and nail to secure back in 2005. Out of them Newham is the only one to be built so far, and lets face it the timetable imposed by the Olympics played a BIG part in getting that open.
Great Yarmouth wants to be the second. It's one of only eight licensing authorities in England authorised to issue a large casino license and the first seaside town to hand out a license and Pleasure and Leisure Corporation has plans for an £18m casino-led scheme called The Edge to the south of the Pleasure Beach.
The scheme was awarded the license back in April but it wasn't a walk in the park getting to this point. Karen Hawes, of Hawes Price which is development consultants for the scheme, says they had to push Great Yarmouth council to get the process going. Most of the councils were wary of being the first, most didn't even know how to run a casino competition and she says, nobody wanted to the first and get it wrong, or worse, end up with a judicial challenge.
Now, The Edge has offers from two restaurants (out of six) and expects to be in a position to name names by the end of the month. It's currently deciding on whether to go ahead with a budget hotel and once that's been nailed down it will tweak its planning with a view to starting building in the autumn of next year.
Listen below to hear her discuss pushing the casino process through the council, troubles within the casino industry and what's next for the development.
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