Torbay Today News

IN A SPIN OVER RESORT'S VICTORY

A war of words has broken out between Torbay MP Adrian Sanders and his main political rival.

Mr Sanders has called for a referendum for residents to have their say in the great casino debate.He has accused mayor Nick Bye of not listening to public opinion before making the resort's successful bid.

But Marcus Wood, the Bay's Tory prospective candidate, has challenged Mr Sanders to apologise over remarks he made last year branding the casino bid 'a waste of time'.

He claims Mr Sanders is 'out of step with events' and has called on him to do 'the decent thing' and apologise.

But Mr Sanders claimed Torbay only won the small casino deal because other councils had consulted more widely - and then had withdrawn their plans after negative feedback.

Mr Wood said: "I complained at the time that Mr Sanders's negative attack on particularly the Torbay Development Agency and the council officers concerned was unhelpful and unfair.

"Since he has been proven once again to be so out of step with events would he now like to do the decent thing and apologise to the hard working officers and Development Agency volunteers concerned?

"I remarked in a letter at the time that Mr Sanders' pessimistic and defeatist attitude is bad for Torbay and I am only glad the members of the TDA, Nick Bye and council officers ignored his advice.

"If this is Mr Sanders' approach to winning things from the government on our behalf, then is it any wonder we are still waiting for a bypass?"

But Mr Sanders said: "If Torbay didn't already have a casino then this would be a very different debate.

"My concerns have always been aimed at the Mayor, not with the officers and the TDA who do the mayor's bidding.

"The reason that we became top of the list for the casinos is that everyone else did consultation, withdrew their bids.

"We've yet to do that properly.

"And no-one has never not come to Torbay because we've only got one casino.

"I have spoken to the Secretary of State and asked how many jobs will be created and how many of these will be low value and be filled by Eastern European migrants.

"I asked what extra resources are going to be given to Torbay Council to help with drug addiction linked to gambling.

"And I asked what extra resources are going to be given to the police to deal with the additional levels of crime.

"The Secretary agreed that there would be an increase, it just depends on how big it is as to what resources we might get."

Torbay Council's initial consultation took place last March and saw 184 people respond.

Mr Sanders claimed: "The people of Torbay were not consulted when the Mayor made the decision to bid for a licence.

"Now the licence has been approved it is time for the mayor to listen to the views of Bay residents. A referendum is the best way."