THE Labour Party is set to drop Blackpool as a conference venue, it emerged this weekend.
The party's National Executive will decide later this week where to stage the 2006 event and is expected to accept a recommendation to move it to Manchester.
Blackpool's aging conference venue, the Winter Gardens, has previously come under fire from senior Labour figures, including Prime Minister, Tony Blair, who compared the venue to a 'sauna' in his last speech in the resort.
The modern G-Mex centre in Manchester City Centre is expected to become the party's new northern home after hosting the party's Spring conference last year.
The party last came to Blackpool in 2002 when former American president, Bill Clinton, was the guest speaker.
This Autumn will see both the Conservative and Liberal Democrat conferences take place in the resort.
A new conference venue is part of the resort's ambitious Masterplan and Hilton Group announced last week it was hoping to build a convention centre as part of a £600m hotel and casino development.
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