CALL it what you like.

Head in the (seven miles of golden) sand. State of denial. Or whatever.

There are surely now only a handful of people who still cling to the illusion that the surf reef has been money well spent.

Bournemouth’s director of tourism is one of them.

Mark Smith, who has done a great job for the town (the air festival for instance, was his initiative) claims bizarrely that the reef is still “a key part of the offer at Boscombe.”

Only now, it’s not really for surfing but for snorkelling and a bit of kayaking.

The reef has been a massive flop.

The argument that it has, useless pile of bags and wire or not, helped regenerate Boscombe, is a specious and disengenuous one.

Three and a half million pounds could have been spent on something that actually worked. The reef is the Imax on water. A disaster.

And a scandalous waste of money.