Threat to Bingo clubs in Chancellor's Budget (From Wirral Globe)

Threat to Bingo clubs in Chancellor's Budget

9:52am Friday 8th May 2009 in Search By Globe correspondent

Bingo clubs in Merseyside have responded angrily to an increase in bingo taxation, announced in Chancellor Alistair Darling's Budget statement.

In a letter to the Mr Darling, the Rank Group – which operates 14 Mecca Bingo clubs in the area including one in Birkenhead, branded the increase “damaging and unwarranted”.

As a consequence of the Government’s decision to raise the rate of bingo duty from 15% to 22%, bingo is now Britain’s most heavily taxed form of gaming.

Craig Millar, Mecca Bingo’s area manager for Lancashire and Merseyside, said: “Last week’s budget statement was a major blow for our clubs and for the rest of the industry.

"We do not understand why the Government continues to discriminate against the nation’s bingo clubs, which play an important role in bringing people together in the communities which they serve.”

Mr Millar explained that since 2006, approximately 90 bingo clubs have closed in Britain and trade organisation, the Bingo Association fears that more closures may follow as a result of the tax increase.

However, Treasury ministers have told Mecca Bingo that they are not concerned if people lose their jobs through club closures as these are assumed to be compensated for by job creation elsewhere in the economy.

Mecca Bingo employs more than 500 people in its clubs in Lancashire and Merseyside and caters to more than 700,000 customers from across the region.