Regeneration - Elected Representatives Visions Needed

The government is expected to make a statement today repeating that casinos are not the best option for regenerating run-down communities.

An announcement will be made that the supercasino for Manchester will not go ahead and a selection of packages will be announced to mitigate the expected job loss.

As I say today in my gambling blog, I welcome this news and it will be interesting to hear what is in the regeneration package for Manchester.

No doubt, the gambling lobby, including local authority leaders, will be out in force today arguing that the regenerative alternatives to gambling are inadequate.

But, although I don't agree with the gambling lobby's vision for a better Britain, I do believe we need much more emphasis on statements of vision.

The announcements today, I believe, will go some way to removing a negative but will do little to create more positives for modern Britain.

We need our community leaders to stand up and say what sort of a country they want to live in.

We also need the public to be more outspoken about their vision for a better life.

It doesn't matter what media we use. It may be blogs, it may be TV or radio or even the local newspaper with letters to the editor.

We like to say that we live in a free society but that is not to say that we cannot as a huge family define what we believe would give us a better life.

Recently, an organisation hit the news in the UK that was suggesting additional Speakers Corners. This is something that I have been proposing for West Somerset for years. It not only provides an important community focus where people can meet but it also might lead to new and better policies being identified.

In West Somerset, the chances of ideas like this being implemented, I would suspect, are minimal. There are many people, in West Somerset who I talk to regularly, for whom regeneration is a dirty word and the local elected leaders no doubt act with this in mind.

However, there are more adventurous and innovative areas in the UK than sleepy old West Somerset who could institute local speakers corners and, in my view, would receive much benefit.

Whatever the media, we need to increase the volume of the debate because it affects all our lives and it affects the quality of our lives.

It is time to move positively from being reactive to being proactive on lifestyle options and that is an area we surely all have an opinion.