Merkur Slots gambling shop calls for consistency in bid to open 24/7

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The owners of a city centre gambling shop have put forward plans to open 24 hours a day.

Merkur Slots, formerly known as Cashino, wants to extend the opening hours and its venue in The Cross in Worcester to 24 hours a day from the current closing time of midnight.

The call comes after the council awarded a neighbouring amusement centre in Broad Street the right to open 24 hours a day with Merkur Slots saying Worcester City Council needed to show a “level of consistency.”

Bosses at the amusement centre in The Cross, which is filled with slot and fruit machines as well as tablets for online bingo, say they have received no complaints about noise since opening eight months ago.

Earlier this year, Shipley Amusement Centre moved from the former Scala Theatre in Angel Place around the corner to Broad Street in the building formerly occupied by BrightHouse and was given permission to open 24 hours a day – a privilege which Merkur Slots say should also be extended to its venue.

Last year, based on the advice of West Mercia Police, the city council granted Merkur Slots, then known as Cashino, a licence for the adult amusement centre in The Cross but restricted opening hours to 9am to midnight despite a request to open all day and night.

A statement included with the application said: “Merkur Slots typically operate 24 hours and where they do not operate 24 hours, they usually operate until the early hours. A midnight closing time is a very early closing time for a leisure use that relies on evening and night-time trade.”

The move by Shipley forms part of a multi-million-pound regeneration project by the city council in the city centre which will see the grade II-listed Scala Theatre and Corn Exchange buildings in Angel Street transformed into a new performing arts venue

The regeneration work, which would also see the neighbouring eyesore former Co-op supermarket transformed into shops, restaurants and offices, is being carried in part by the almost £18 million awarded to the city from the Government’s Future High Streets Fund.