Casino announcement delayed for fear of appeals over Prescott's role

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Annoucement delayed: John Prescott's role in the 'super-casino' decision has been questioned

The decision over where to build Britain's first Las Vegas-style super casino has been delayed amid fears that it will trigger a spate of costly legal challenges from snubbed operators.

A special Government quango had been due to choose between seven short-listed cities by the end of the year and is widely expected to back the Millennium Dome in London.

Such a move which would cause intense political embarrassment for ministers who are accused of favouring the Dome bid, thanks to John Prescott's secretive links with its billionaire U.S. backer Philip Anschutz.

Now there are also growing concerns that the other six cities will cry foul and challenge the decision in the High Court, plunging the Government into a messy series of legal tussles over an already deeply controversial policy.

The quango panel set up to advise ministers on where the casino should be built has asked to delay its report by at least a month blaming 'the printing process', but critics dismissed that explanation as 'spurious' and warned that the Government's muddled casino policies were about to produce a 'lawyers' paradise' at taxpayers' expense.

When Labour first pledged to relax Britain's casino laws they hoped to allow around 40 vast new sites across the country.

But the Daily Mail's campaign spearheading the likely social impact led to a political backlash and Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell was forced to scale down the numbers, first to eight giant casinos and then to just one.

That left huge U.S. gaming corporations which had successfully lobbied ministers to relax Britain's gambling laws scrabbling to be allowed to build the lucrative gaming palace, which will house up to 1,250 gambling machines with unlimited jackpots.

The rival cities also short-listed are Blackpool, Cardiff, Glasgow, Manchester, Newcastle and Sheffield.

The Casino Advisory Panel was set up to recommend the locations of new casinos, but many critics believe the lengthy process is a sham and that the Dome's bid - backed by American tycoon Philip Anschutz - is already a done deal.

News of John Prescott's secret visit to Mr Anschutz's Denver ranch last year and the undeclared gifts he received added to those suspicions, as did the fact that the Anschutz Entertainment Group has already built its casino structure inside the Dome, months before any official decision is due.

Some opponents believe ministers are desperate to achieve some success at the Dome to help wipe out memories of the grandiose project's disastrous year as a visitor attraction, and subsequent failures to sell off the site.

But whoever wins, with so much investment and profit at stake, ministers are now braced for a series of expensive and messy legal challenges from rivals.

Havering Borough Council in London has already highlighted the willingness of local authorities to challenge the process with its so-far unsuccessful High Court battle to be added to the advisory panel's short-list.

Liberal Democrat culture spokesman Norman Baker said: "This latest delay is almost certainly for legal reasons rather than some spurious concern over printing.

"The expected legal challenges are likely to be a lawyers' paradise, but they are the inevitable consequence of muddled policy-making which raised expectations of dozens of these giant casinos, then cut the number to one.

"Ministers marched everybody up the hill and then marched them down again."

Shadow Culture Secretary Hugo Swire warned that legal squabbles would cost taxpayers "a fortune", adding: "Whoever is the successful budder the process will be caught up in a fight through the courts."

The Department of Culture, Media and Sport insisted the one-month delay was 'relatively short' and would not affect the building of the new casino.

Last week it emerged that Mr Anschutz is facing a criminal investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice under American anti-corruption laws, over his infamous gift of a cowboy suit to John Prescott during last year's visit.

 

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