Where is the conference centre?

I was under the impression that the Single Regeneration Budget grants were for the specific purpose of encouraging and providing support for new businesses which were prepared to open in deprived areas in order to create jobs in those areas.

The philosophy is that, as one business becomes successful, others would follow and so the regeneration process would become self motivating.

I also understand that the Blackpool Challenge Partnership, which is a private company, was set up by invitation by the council for the sole purpose of distributing SRB money.

And so it was that £1m of the Blackpool council tax payers' money was spent on creating a very professional and detailed plan, the main feature of which being a conference centre, to bid for SRB funding. I was at a presentation meeting where this plan was discussed before it was presented to the appropriate government office.

As we now know the bid was successful and the SRB funding is now in the possession of the BCP. But where is the conference centre? And, even more to the point, where is the SRB money?

I understand that the BCP agreed to spend in the region of £200,000 to pay for a firm to lobby MPs to agree to a relaxation in the law controlling gambling and that Blackpool should have the special privilege of being the first to have casinos on a grand scale.

As we are aware the first request was successful but the second has still not been achieved. We still have the central car parking site which, incidentally, generates an income of over £1m -- just enough to pay Leisure Parcs for the privilege of reserving the Winter Gardens for any conferences which may or may not come along.

And, at another meeting I attended recently, we were assured that no bid had been made for the site and that in any event it was not for sale. So what has happened to the bid plan?

As already stated the SRB funding is paid in the hope of encouraging new businesses and therefore not for expanding already highly successful established ones and one couldn't get a more successful business than The Tower, Opera House, Winter Gardens, North, Central and South Piers and most of the Golden Mile, along with a few hotels dotted about here and there.

I have to consider that, if a body, either public or private, asks for money which is projected to be used for a particular purpose and is then not used for it, it is at the very least less than honest. I feel that the people of Blackpool have to be made aware of this so that pertinent questions can be asked and we, the Blackpool public, can then make our feelings known.

Beverley Moy,

Warbreck Hill Road,

Blackpool.