IT may be National Poetry Day tomorrow but one thing’s for sure. I’m no Samuel Taylor Coleridge when it comes to seeing visions.

Bournemouth has just unveiled its own vision for the future but when I close my eyes and try to imagine it, it’s hardly the Kubla Khan pleasure dome that I see before me.

It seems a tad unexciting. And the scale of development, eating up so many open spaces and with so many high buildings, is worrying.

The “water-based family attraction” near the pier sounds fun but, once you get away from that and the Grand Garden Walk, you seem to be left with usual plans for homes, high-rise blocks, shops, restaurants, hotels and the possibility of a couple of all-weather attractions like cinemas or museums. Oh, and scope for a “distinctive building”. Just one?

I’m all for planning the town’s development as a whole and the ideas may be very nice... but they seem a London Eye short of inspirational.

In the past, the council took bold decisions to go ahead with the Imax and it became an albatross round their neck. Is it playing too safe now? And will we rue the huge loss of space? It’s too early to judge .. and business bigwigs have certainly welcomed the blueprint.

So, fingers crossed. The Grand Garden Walk may prove far grander than just a nice walk through more pleasure gardens.

The tall buildings could be as tasty as the Gherkin. A museum could be so original it will stoppeth at least one tourist in three.

And, who knows? The cinema could even show 3D films… like the Imax used to do.

Or was that all just a strange dream?