A MAJOR development comprising a theatre, multiple restaurants and a hotel overlooking Bournemouth’s seafront has moved a step closer to reality after the council appointed an architect.

The authority suffered a public backlash after the Bournemouth Development Company (BDC) – a public-private partnership between the council and Morgan Sindall – issued a design brief for the project on Bath Road’s two car parks earlier this year.

However, a new press release issued by Bournemouth council announcing that Zaha Hadid Architects had been commissioned to design the town’s “cultural quarter” on Bath Road North car park, next to the Pavilion Theatre, included no mention of Bath Road South.

Bath Road South is the site closest to the clifftop and lies just 100 yards from the now demolished Imax cinema, once named on a list of the UK’s ugliest buildings prior to being torn down in 2013.

The Daily Echo asked the borough’s leader, Cllr John Beesley, if the omission of any details on Bath Road South car park was in response to residents’ fears that a new development on the site could become “another Imax” and block sea views.

“Despite what the BDC has put out, it has never been envisaged to put substantial development on Bath Road South,” Cllr Beesley replied.

“I took very considerable risk and huge effort in leading our way to get the Imax building demolished, and so the last thing I am going to do is to undermine that with a substantial development on Bath Road South – it is something that’s just not going to happen.

“I find it just extraordinary that anyone could believe we would do something like that.”

Cllr Beesley said he had always regarded the two car parks as separate projects, and that the design brief combining the sites had come from the BDC and not the council.

Chosen designers Zaha Hadid Architects, headquartered in London, have twice won the prestigious Stirling Prize.

The company’s director, Jim Heverin, said the Pavilion Gardens project has “wonderful possibilities”.

“We greatly look forward to working with the community and all stakeholders to develop a shared vision for this very important site,” he added.