COUNCIL leaders have confirmed the use of the word ‘city region’ to describe the conurbation is no longer the preference after acknowledging many residents did not like it.

Civic chiefs are now favouring ‘coastal region’ or ‘BCP region’ as feedback from a large consultation showed discontent.

The council failed in a bid for city status for Bournemouth as part of the celebrations for the Queen's Platinum Jubilee.

The Local Plan issues and options consultation showed that 46 per cent of respondents strongly disagreed or disagreed with the vision of: “We aim for Bournemouth, Christchurch, and Poole to be the UK's newest city region, brimming with prospects, positivity, and pride.”

A report to cabinet said most of these objections were related to mention of 'city status'.

Speaking at a recent cabinet meeting, BCP Council deputy leader Cllr Philip Broadhead said this split of views on the vision was important to consider.

“A lot of people like that phraseology, a lot of people didn’t like that phraseology,” he said.

“As we have already discussed in other forums I think we are now starting to refer more to our coastal region or BCP region.

“That city region, although we are considered like that by the government, is very good for inward investment, very good at talking to government but actually I think reflecting people more connect with the BCP region than anything else.”

Cllr Broadhead said while it was reportedly the most engaged with consultation process ever conducted by the council, there were areas where improvement was necessary.

He said every proposed development site promoted to the local authority was included in the consultation to get “true feedback”.

The portfolio holder for development, growth and regeneration said it was “very surprising” that only 53 per cent of respondents agreed that providing a sufficient supply of affordable homes to meet different community needs was important.

This could be reflective of the older demographic who provided the majority of responses, Cllr Broadhead said.

It was acknowledged by councillors that more needed to be done to engage with the younger generation, especially given many of the policies in the Local Plan will affect their futures the most.

“This will be absolutely critical with those thousands of responses to shaping how we go forward with the next step of the Local Plan,” Cllr Broadhead said.

Work is now taking place on bring forward further consultations ahead of creating a draft Local Plan, which will need to go out for formal feedback.

Cllr Judes Butt, non-executive lead member for engagement said she wanted the consultation for the Local Plan to be done to a “gold standard”.

The council is set to extend the timeline for the Local Plan delivery to 2024, a delay of 12 months, so the “cross party consultative approach” can be continued.