IT WAS more than 20 years ago when I started my first job down here working for the Advertiser Series at their Poole office in the High Street.

Lunchtimes were often spent strolling down to the Quay to sit down at the quayside eating a sandwich, my legs dangling a few yards above the water.

If I had possessed a mobile phone back then, I would probably have been calling my former colleagues at their office in the suburbs of Manchester just to tell them about the glorious views across to Brownsea Island, the joyful sound of seagulls soaring overhead and the fact that I was just five minutes away from some of the best beaches in the country.

When family or friends visited, it was always my first port of call for a pint at one of the pubs and perhaps even a pleasure trip around the islands, a trip of which I will never tire.

Nothing much has changed for me. There's still a frisson of self-satisfaction when I drive or walk along the Quay, past the majestic Sunseekers and look out across the harbour.

But Poole has changed and the fact that a radical tourist attraction like the Solar Pyramid is being put forward as a potential catalyst to the resurgence of an area that has seen a decline in visitors over the past five years has to be perplexing.

It's not even the concept - after all Portsmouth's Spinnaker Tower had the most controversial gestation period imaginable - but if it is the Dolphin Quays development that appears to be the issue, surely it's time to concentrate efforts on solving that problem.

It seems such a pity that a place that has been in the top 10 places to visit in the UK is in danger of retaining such high levels of popularity only among owners of expensive boats and motorbikes.