Fears have been raised by residents that “son of solar pyramid” may be on its way to Poole, as councillors meet a leisure consultant to consider new tourist attractions.

“This is a carbon copy of the solar pyramid,” said David Howard, chairman of Parkstone Bay Association. “This is exactly how the pyramid started.”

But an assurance has been given by Graham Richardson, Borough of Poole’s head of tourism, that there are no similar plans on the table.

All councillors and members of the town centre and tourism management boards have been invited by the major tourist attractions working party to a presentation from the Petersham Group on November 9.

“They are a leisure consultancy coming down to speak to members about what sort of attractions maybe Poole can try and attract,” said Mr Richardson.

Workshops were held last year with residents and tourism businesses and a long list of ideas was put forward including making more of the town’s heritage and maritime history.

“We want to try and put some realism to it. What realistically could be attracted to Poole,” said Mr Richardson.

He said the consultants were not coming with a particular project in mind but could help with information on markets and catchment areas.

The solar pyramid scheme, which would have seen the world’s largest timepiece built at Baiter, raised a storm of protest from residents and the privately-funded proposal was dropped by the council in 2008.

Since then they have been considering what new tourist attraction might be suitable but residents are keen to protect the town’s open spaces.

“We got our fingers burnt with the pyramid, so let’s do it again the same way,” said Mr Howard. “Here we go again, it’s son of solar pyramid.”

Mr Richardson said the tourism working party would then meet again and try and whittle down the long list to a few areas worthy of further investigation.