A Super Casino Comes to Scotland
Stranraer is small town in Dumfries & Galloway with next to nothing to offer tourists. Home to Scotland’s second largest passenger terminal port, the small town of 10,000 inhabitants is now poised to become a new star on the tourist horizon. A relatively poor part of the country, with 20% lower than average income and employment levels, Stranraer has been given a license by the Casino Advisory Panel as the location of the new Supercasino to be developed in Scotland.
Critics may worry that it will end up as the local Las Vegas but authorities see it as an opportunity to transform a port into a resort. Either ways it will be a good subject for sociologists to study the impact of this change on the town and its residents. Operators hope that a casino at Stranraer would attract people from Northern Ireland. The port town is just an hour and a half away from Belfast.
Stranraer will have the right to open a casino with a floor space of up to 2000 square meters. There will be up to 80 jackpot machines that will offer maximum prizes of 4,000 pounds. The casino is just one part of a major regeneration plan for Stranraer. Authorities plan to build a marina here and shift the ferry terminal eight miles away. This will add impetus to develop resort style leisure activities in the town.
The authorities hope the casino will create jobs and that Stranraer will grow in the right direction. They want to attract young people to continue to stay here and the town should not end up as a retirement town. The town needs a boost to improve the local economy but the residents wonder how successful the scheme will be particularly as the ferry terminus has had to be shifted out. Further they feel that the infrastructure is not up to the mark as far as the roads and local facilities are concerned. It is difficult to predict the success of this venture but there is a chance that this will be new beginning for Stranraer, and that Lady Luck will favour the locals at last.