APARTMENTS, beach huts, cafes and even a seafront hotel could emerge along Poole’s three miles of golden sand under plans due for consultation.

Borough of Poole has compiled a 25-year Seafront Beaches Master Plan to conserve and enhance one of the town’s greatest assets.

“People just think of Sandbanks and Shore Road,” said Nigel Jacobs, planning policy manager. “Actually there’s another two-and-a-half miles.

“Part of what this is about is saying Poole has three miles of lovely beaches; how do we enable people to have access to these beaches?”

He said much of the infrastructure was dated and tired and there were conservation issues such as the cliffs, some of which were protected SSSIs.

“It’s not about destroying what we have,” he said. “It’s about saying we love the beaches and they are great, but we need to invest.

“We can’t not do anything. Let’s build on what we have got and make it an even better place.”

Following consultation earlier in the year suggestions have been put forward for each of the six beaches, with money raised through public/private finance to fund improvements.

Sandbanks: dune landscape.

Proposals include creating a new parade of shops with apartments above opposite those at the Banks Road roundabout, opening that area up to pedestrians, a small scale beachfront hotel, more beach huts, parallel road parking and using some of the car park for out of season events.

Shore Road: social beach.

More beach huts, building three-storey apartments on the car park, cafe restaurant, improve the changing and showering facilities.

Flaghead Beach: hut life.

Improve access to the beach and parking, more beach huts and ice cream kiosk, possible residential use of a piece of council-owned cliff top land.

Canford Cliffs: the village beach.

Improve the esplanade with a decking area for sitting out, new cafe, beach huts, sports pitches for beach football and volleyball.

Branksome Beach: a window on the beaches.

Make a watersports venue for windsurfing, kayaking etc, a sky cafe on the cliff, open up a path through the chine to the Beach Road car park.

Branksome Dene Chine: woodland by the sea.

Better beach facilities, more beach huts and bigger studio huts where people could possibly stay overnight during the season.

The council’s economy overview and scrutiny committee will on Tuesday be asked to put this out for public consultation from December 17 to February 12.

Bob Lister, chairman of Poole Beach Huts Association said: “We have pushed them to build more huts to reduce the waiting list. We suggested they could put as an alternative a small quantity of lockers where people could leave beach furniture.”

Bruce Grant-Braham, chairman of Poole Tourism Partnership said: “Whatever is proposed for Poole should tie up with what’s happening in Bournemouth. We should consider the whole seven miles of beach. It’s important we don’t lose the character of the beach, it’s special.”

Terry Stewart, chairman of Southern Poole Residents and the local branch of the CPRE said: “My concern is that I don’t want to see our valuable gold assets becoming over developed. I’m specifically concerned about some of the developments of the larger hotels and restaurants and studio huts at the chines.”