ALMOST 13 years ago, my first ‘public engagement’ as editor of this newspaper was the press launch of Bournemouth’s most eagerly-anticipated attraction.

The town’s movers and shakers were in attendance, along with the PR gurus and creators of this new dream.

It was the Waterfront Complex and little did any of us know then that these bright, shiny artists’ impressions would one day become this town’s most publicised cause celebre.

The complex – or that horrible Imax building as it became known – did eventually look slightly different to those original plans, but way too much water and column inches have flowed under the bridge since those hopeful days.

Today, the Waterfront is not being sold to the town’s press and business leaders, but rather to any company with the money and the wherewithal to transform it from the liability it became into something that we can all enjoy.

The signs are hopeful, just as they were back then, with work due to start on reducing the size of the controversial building.

Then a new generation of operators will take up the mantle and provide Bournemouth with what it wanted all along... an all-weather family facility that will serve to put the place on the map.

For all the right reasons.

Much is being made of its location and quite rightly.

Indeed, I understand the view from the ball pond in the family pub that plied its trade in there for many years rivalled anything on the Jurassic coastline.

Fingers crossed, the search to find a saviour will be a successful one.