Buckingham Bingo Halls are feeling the Pinch

London bingo players are safe, but any players from the north of England may be a bit upset as the closure of a Buckingham Bingo site in Didsbury, Manchester has been announced. Buckingham Bingo have been operating since 1970 and are the largest independent bingo chain in the north of the country. With 1.7 million attendances a year you would have thought they would have been safe, but circumstances have gone against them, proving that nowhere is 100% secure these days.

The smoking ban, the introduction of the gross profit tax to replace bingo duty and the present recession have led to the closure of the Parrs Wood Centre bingo hall, although the chain still has 11 sites, 3 of which are in the Greater Manchester area – Middleton, Old Trafford and Walkden if you’d like to pay them a visit. 27 members of staff are unfortunately affected, although 3 will be moving to positions at other bingo halls within the group. The chain are now left with 350 staff, which is still a fairly considerable number.

A spokesman for the company said; ‘Buckingham Bingo is responding to this by consolidating and restructuring the company to secure a longer-term future for the rest of our clubs and better equip us to move forward from what has been a difficult economic period for most businesses’. Venture capital firm Alchemy Partners bought the business in 2005 and were the ones to make this difficult decision, which in the current climate is not the first hall closure and will probably not be the last. Andy Cunningham, Group Chief Executive, has said that the group are undertaking reviews of under-performing clubs and are re-negotiating certain leases in order to put the group into a more stable position. He admitted that 2009 figures were down, which is to be expected, but he also stated they the group did have several large, profitable clubs and their online bingo was performing very well.

In this day and age we are accustomed to hearing about businesses in various sectors being forced to close down, but we hope that wherever you are there will always be a bingo club close at hand for you to play at. Of course if you do get stuck there’s always plenty of online bingo clubs who will be more than happy to help you out!

Related bingo news:

1. Manchester’s Buckingham Bingo shuts down
2. Buckingham Bingo Hall Closes
3. Renovation of Bingo Halls a go go!
4. Bingo club closes in Wellingborough
5. Beacon Bingo Gets Bought For £45 Million.