WHEN the Waterfront building – home to Bournemouth’s Imax cinema – won planning permission in 1997, there were only two objections from the public.

And neither of those letter-writers was worried the building would be too big.

Fast forward a few years and the building had become the structure everyone loved to hate. And after it finally opened more than two years late, the life of the Imax itself was short and ill-fated.

Yesterday, Bournemouth council’s cabinet voted to spend £2million demolishing the building, on top of the £6.5m spent buying back the complex and ousting the tenants, thus putting a number of people out of work.

This latest decision will give us back what we had in 1997 – a big vacant site on the Pier Approach. But unless something new and popular can be found to take its place, £8.5m might start to look like a lot of money to pay for an empty space.