Memorandum submitted by The Noble Organisation
TOURISM IN
BLACKPOOL
I am writing on behalf of The Noble Organisation
ahead of the evidence session tomorrow as part of your Committee's
inquiry into tourism. We are one of the UK's leading leisure businesses,
with major interests in family-oriented seaside attractions, restaurants,
nightclubs, entertainment and gaming centres across the UK.
Our operations include the Coral Island entertainment
complex in Blackpool, which receives over four million visitors
per year and is the town's second busiest attraction. Given that
you are taking evidence from Blackpool Council tomorrow I wanted
to take the opportunity to emphasise the commitment of existing
major leisure businesses, such as ours, to achieving resort regeneration
without reliance on regional casino development.
Coral Island is recognised by the Council's
Local Plan as one of the resort's principal "magnets"
We welcome the overnment's plans to support further regeneration
in Blackpool, support which, in our opinion, would be best focused
on new conference facilities The Council has already identified
and owns an appropriate site and we, and others in the commercial
sector, would be keen to see an expansion of non-casino attractions
and facilities forming part of a conference centre development.
Such facilities would assist Blackpool in re-attracting its traditional
family market.
However, for the last eight years Blackpool
has been blighted by the Council's ill-judged focus on regional
casino development. As many other towns and cities have shown,
including resort destinations, regeneration and increased tourism
is not dependent on casinos. The Prime Minister has said we need
to look at alternative sources of regeneration and as a major
investor in Blackpool's economy The Noble Organisation agrees.
A recent newsletter from ReBlackpool also concluded that change
in Blackpool is "not only about casinos" and highlighted
that a "robust plan is in place . . . with a wide range of
partners to ensure that it translates into reality".
It is also worth noting that the only forum
in which Blackpool's situation in the super-casino debate was
considered independently and thoroughly was through the Casino
Advisory Panel (CAP) process. This received substantial forensic,
economic evidence for and against the proposal. The CAP concluded,
in relation to regeneration, that the economic evidence supporting
the Council's case was flawed while accepting much of the evidence
presented against the bid, on our behalf, by NERA Economic Consulting.
Consistent with that evidence, the CAP concluded that the proposed
regional casino" . . . would not reverse decline."
It also noted that the "reliance for several years on the
resort casino concept has inhibited the production of other ideas
for addressing decline".
The reality is that Blackpool' s economy is
already regenerating, through a number of measures including fresh
investment going into Blackpool's historic" illuminations",
the development of the "People's Playground" across
more than three kilometres of the seafront; and a number of major,
alternative, private sector proposals aimed at bringing back the
family market to the resort. ReBlackpool agrees that the People's
Playground project will transform the central seafront into a
year-round urban park for local residents and visitors. Work on
this project is currently underway. Doug Garrett, ReBlackpool's
Chief Executive has said:" Our aim is to ensure that Blackpool
becomes renowned as a 21st century world-class tourism destination.
The innovative and unique redevelopment of the promenade is the
first big step in making this happen."
You may also be aware that NERA concluded in
a report published in September 2006 that the picture in Blackpool
was "not as gloomy" as the one painted by the Council.
It found that the number of young people in the town was rising,
the total population has grown in the past two years and unemployment
is not particularly high in relation to the regional average.
Coral Island itself has seen considerable investment and as a
result has experienced year on year growth in visitor numbers.
NERA has also presented the DCMS with a further report responding
to that from the Blackpool Task Force. NERA concluded that the
Task Force report was still, regrettably, backward looking basing
some of its views on a repetition of the discredited regional
casino analysis. The town must instead look forward to a dynamic
revival of its traditional attractions.
We want to be part of this positive future for
Blackpool and as a company we are committed to investment in viable
tourism options to help secure the family market in Blackpool.
We have a track record of success: our £30 million investment
in Brighton Pier, the country's largest privately funded conservation
project and now, according to VisitBritain, the UK's third busiest
attraction was the catalyst for the revival of Brighton's attraction
as a resort.
The imperative, in Blackpool, is to put the
years of controversy and stagnation, caused by the casino debate,
behind us and to focus the regeneration of the resort on a new
conference centre and associated, family orientated leisure attractions.
I hope you find this helpful ahead of your session
tomorrow. If you return to this issue in the future we would be
more than happy as an organisation to appear before you or to
provide further evidence.
October 2007
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