On Wednesday I was delighted that Cabinet gave the green light to a £43million development, kick-starting the major regeneration of Westover Road.

The project is the result of almost four years of renegotiation with developer Osborne Bournemouth Limited, following the Council’s opposition to their original plans to include a casino in the development.

Following our successful negotiations and insistence on a quality offer, the new plans fit much more closely with our aspirations of providing all-weather family friendly attractions in Bournemouth.

Instead of the originally proposed casino, the development will bring a state of the art multi-screen cinema, plus quality shops and restaurants, including a spectacular rooftop restaurant.

There will also be underground parking for around 350 cars, plus an ‘interval court’ to the Pavilion complex. The two cinemas currently on Westover Road are being encouraged to relocate to the new development, leaving vacant space for new flagship retail stores.

I believe the entire development, which is expected to create 200 new jobs, is hugely exciting and one that, subject to final planning approval, we can all get behind.

Our partnership with Osborne Bournemouth Limited means that the rest of the vital investment needed in the Pavilion can now go ahead, and is just another example of how we can jointly develop aspirations and plans to improve Bournemouth by working with the private sector.

Being a coastal town, the tourism sector is vitally important in Bournemouth, which is why this week, the Council – together with Poole Tourism, the New Forest National Park, and key tourism industry professionals – submitted a bid for government money worth £4.077 million to bring the UK’s first National Tourism Business Academy to Bournemouth.

By offering a unique and diverse range of best practice sharing, including hospitality standards training and learning, the Academy would raise the bar of tourism professionalism to a new level.

Locally, we know this special part of the south coast represents the best that Britain has to offer – and this is our opportunity to grow our industry locally whilst sharing that expertise across the country. I am thrilled that our bid has been submitted and wish it the very best of luck. I will be watching this space!

Huge congratulations are in order this week, following the welcome news that the number of 16-18 year olds in Bournemouth not in education, employment or training - known as NEET – has significantly reduced beyond our most optimistic expectations.

We have worked with our partners on an ambitious strategy to tackle this issue and increase young peoples’ motivation, confidence and employability by providing literacy and numeracy lessons, work experience and volunteering opportunities.

This good work has evidently paid off since we have managed to beat our challenging target of no more than 5.4% of our 16-18 year olds NEET by more than 1 percent.

With 4.2% of our 16-18 year olds NEET (as of January 2011) we now have the second lowest number of those NEET out of our 11 statistical neighbour authorities.

This is a fantastic achievement considering historically Bournemouth has had one of the highest number of 16-18 year olds NEET out of our statistical neighbours.

I would like to express my thanks and appreciation to all those involved in making this happen and hope that together the team can continue to build on this success. Well done to all concerned!

Finally last week, I met with the Head Teacher and Chair of Governors at Kingsleigh Primary School to discuss our future plans to improve the Hadow Road access to Kingsleigh Primary and The Bourne Academy, and to create safer routes for pupils including new cycle paths.

These works are currently in the planning stage and will form the final part of our investment in Kingsleigh Primary following the previous expansion of their buildings on a single site, and will support The Bourne Academy’s improvement plans, following the government’s significant £10million investment to improve their school buildings.

Until next week.

Peter