Bingo Takes to the Suburbs and Town Centres Loose the Plot

by Hollie Sanders

Traditional land based bingo halls in the centre of towns are soon going to be a thing of the past. Just such a town centre is in Ramsgate, where drab run-down buildings are only overshadowed by the dreadful non-seeing eyes of shop fronts that have been boarded up due to lack of tenancy and of course custom.

It is felt that one of the reasons for the run-down, boarded up look of the centre of the town in Ramsgate is because big businesses such as Rank (Mecca bingo) are leaving these centres and heading for the hills, or should I say, more suburban shopping centres. Rank took their Mecca bingo club out of the town centre of Ramsgate and re-situated it in the more modern and popular Westwood Cross retail park.

We can’t entirely blame the bingo giant fro following customers to the retail parks, but it is a great pity that glorious buildings such as the one tenanted by Mecca Bingo in Margate are being left to rack and ruin. The Victorian Pavilion in Ramsgate, was where Mecca bingo was originally housed from 1969 and now they have run off and left this building in a dilapidated state of repairs, leaving the local council no hope of ever being able to let it or make use of it.