Casino bid jobs hope; LEISURE: Ex-car workers 'would benefit' from NEC plan.Byline: By Mail Reporter A SUPER-casino at the National Exhibition Centre would provide more jobs for the West Midlands' displaced displaced see displacement. car workers than a rival bid from Coventry, it has been claimed. Officials at the NEC (NEC Corporation, Tokyo, www.nec.com, www.necus.com) An electronics conglomerate known in the U.S. for its monitors. In Japan, it had the lion's share of the PC market until the late 1990s (see PC 98). NEC was founded in Tokyo in 1899 as Nippon Electric Company, Ltd. said former workers would benefit from more than 7,000 job opportunities generated at the Solihull complex if its ambitious scheme is given the go-ahead. The claim comes after council leaders in Coventry called on the Government to give the UK's only proposed super-casino licence to the city's Ricoh Arena Inaugural events The arena became the venue for Coventry City's home games at the start of the 2005-06 season, following 106 years at the Highfield Road stadium. The first competitive football match played at the Ricoh Arena was against Queens Park Rangers on 20 August 2005, in , where 1,000 jobs will be created, days after it was announced that the Peu-geot plant in Ryton was to close. Deborah Smith, marketing and communications director at the NEC, said the region was in desperate need of a scheme that would provide regeneration and employment opportunities following the collapse of some of the Midlands' largest employers. Last month French car maker Peugeot announced the Ryton plant would close with the loss of 2,300 jobs. The closure, after 60 years of car production, follows the shutdown shut·down n. A cessation of operations or activity, as at a factory. shutdown Noun the closing of a factory, shop, or other business Verb shut down of the nearby Jaguar factory, with the loss of 1,000 jobs, and the collapse of MG Rover a year ago which left 6,000 Long-bridge employees out of work. Ms Smith said the 1,000 jobs at the Ricoh Arena would not be sufficient to soften the blow of the Peugeot redundancies and the NEC proposal "out-guns the Ricoh Arena on almost every count" in terms of regeneration opportunities for the region. "In employment terms, in a city still recovering from the Rover plant closure, we also offer the biggest potential pool of new opportunities with up to 7,000 direct and indirect jobs from construction through to when the casino is open for business," she said. "Given the NEC's strategic role as an economic driver for the Midlands and its 30-year performance in sustaining thousands of jobs and billions of pounds of income for the region, the NEC's regional casino proposal is the one best placed to support the local economy. "Based on our past performance of employing people from across the West Midlands West Midlands, former metropolitan county, central England. Created in the 1974 local government reorganization, the county embraced the Birmingham conurbation and comprised seven metropolitan districts: Walsall, Wolverhampton, Dudley, Sandwell, Birmingham, Solihull, , the NEC could actually help Coventry recover from the loss of jobs at Peugeot as well as supporting north Solihull and Birmingham which has the greatest employment need in the region." The NEC is keen to promote the regeneration possibilities of its super-casino scheme, as the wider economic benefits of its proposals have recently been overshadowed by Birmingham City Football Club's plans for a super-stadium and casino in Saltley. Meanwhile, cabinet members in Coventry have been heavily promoting a 90,000 sq ft casino at the Ricoh Stadium. CAPTION(S): NEC CASE... Deborah Smith. |
|
||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion