The Westcliff Casino has vowed to press on with its plans for a supercasino on Southend's seafront despite the Government making it more difficult for such establishments to open.

The Government will be limiting the number of new casinos in the UK to 24 instead of 40 as it originally intended to, and only eight of those will be allowed to be large.

But Westcliff Casinos, which wants to build a hotel and casino complex with luxury flats and conference centre on its current site, said they would continue until they knew for sure a supercasino would not be allowed in Southend.

Sally Coles, marketing director for the Westcliff Casino group, said: "We are still interested. We are going to continue as long as possible until it's decided one way or the other."

"We're not going to amend our plans until it has been resolved."

The Government has amended the number of new casinos in response to critics who fear there will be a huge increase in gambling.

Richard Caborn, the deputy of culture secretary Tessa Jowell, said: "Limiting the number of regional casinos to eight in the first phase is a cautious move to the issue and responded to the concerns raised.

"Limiting the number of regional casinos to eight in the first phase is a cautious move that will allow us to test the impact of a new kind of casino on the levels of problem gambling.

"We also believe it's right to apply this same level of caution to small and large casinos."