NOBODY can be proud about the state of our town centres. In fairness, we may be over the worst.

New shops are opening up and many other towns and cities are in an even worse state, but our three town centres are the clearest evidence of Torbay's decline.

Quite simply, there has been very little investment for the last 20 years or more, and our weak economy means many residents have little money to spend.

The problems are more deep rooted than the parking regime or policies in the Town Hall.

Indeed, the council is doing its best by investing in the town centres, with the Castle Circus regeneration project, the new Paignton Library and Community Hub, as well as working with Tesco in Brixham to provide a new supermarket and large car park.

The emphasis is now on encouraging town centre development and discouraging any new out-of-town shopping.

The Mayoral Vision highlights numerous town centre sites.

In Paignton we put our money where our mouth is and made a bid for Crossways as a means of kick starting regeneration there. Alas, somebody else came along with a deeper pocket.

But there is hope! While all these schemes may be some way off and it could be some years before we have the retail centre you would expect in a place with a population of 135,000 (and many more than that in the summer months), plans are being finalised for the Business Improvement District for Torquay.

The council has invested substantially in this project and I have given my support.

It makes so much sense and similar schemes have worked well elsewhere.

In a nutshell, businesses in the town centre are balloted and, if they agree, contribute an additional modest business rate to whatever improvements they believe will increase the prosperity of the town.

It may be additional marketing and promotion. It may be events, such as festivals, carnivals and spectacular Christmas lights.

It may be extra street cleaning, chewing gum 'blasting', security patrols or some new signs.

The key is it will be EXTRA services and not an excuse for the council to cut back. But if there is a 'yes' vote then everybody will have to contribute and they will have a say in how their money is spent.

The BID launch at the Imperial Hotel was very positive. There was a brilliant presentation from Neil Scott, director of Totally Truro, who provided evidence of success in Cornwall.

I was hugely impressed by the strong support from several Torquay traders who genuinely believe this is the best (possibly last) chance for the town.

A couple pretty much admitted the moans and groans had gone on long enough and now it was time to work together.

Lucy Ball, chief executive of the Town Centres Company, deserves a medal for getting this far.

The timing has been extraordinary: she arrived on the scene just as the recession started to do its worst and it seemed the town was in terminal decline.

Last January you could have asked the last shopper leaving the town to turn off all the lights, please.

Lucy never lost faith and fully deserves a 'yes' vote.

It should then be possible to replicate this success in Paignton, Brixham, St Marychurch and Babbacombe.

SOMEBODY else who deserves a medal is Carolyn Custerson, who is working hard to turn things around in tourism.

I never thought I would live to see the day when all the tourism groups and factions in Torbay would come together in one room and agree, in simple terms, a strategy for their future prosperity.

It has taken somebody from outside to spell out some uncomfortable truths, explaining why tourism in Torbay has been in decline, whereas elsewhere in Devon and Cornwall there has been a revival.

It all comes down to meeting visitors' higher expectations and working together to promote the place.

Here is somewhere with a stunning natural environment, a host of attractions any resort would be proud of and a cultural heritage second to none.

You would think it would be hard to fail, especially now folks are getting tired of airport delays, ugly developments on the 'Costas' and the poor value of a weak pound abroad.

Unfortunately, we have taken our visitors for granted for too long and provide too much of the 'wrong' sort of (poor quality) accommodation.

Some of our built environment is tired. Many of the gift shops, cafes and bars seem to cater for the lowest common denominator.

It has also taken forever to get our act together to promote what makes the place special.

Previous councils have simply failed to invest in our basic infrastructure.

So now there is a massive (and expensive) catch up underway with new lights, improved loos, investment in our parks, gardens, Rock Walk, Torre Abbey, marine infrastructure and much more.

Carolyn's great success is to bring together the key players in tourism in Torbay.

The project delivery team chairman is Laurence Murrell from Torbay Leisure Hotels.

He is somebody we can all respect. As well as a trio of councillors, the team includes Claire Jeavons from Beverly Holidays, Nick Powe from Kents Cavern, Pippa Craddock from Paignton Zoo and Will Ford from Greenway Ferries.

In the past there has been more politics in Torbay tourism than at the Labour party conference.

Some of those calling the shots have either had precious little to do with actually earning a living from tourism or just saw it from one narrow perspective.

Not for nothing was Basil Fawlty Torquay's most famous hotelier and the latest antics of the 'Hospitality Association' remind us what it could still be like.

The ethos of the new tourism company is very similar to the BID: working in partnership with the council and moving on from the 'blame' culture of the past.

There will be hard choices to make. The question mark over the future of the Brixham Tourist Information Centre has provoked lively debate.

This is a proposal from the new tourism company, although I am amused to see I get some of the blame.

But the majority of the letters in this paper objecting have come from residents in the town, complaining they will have nowhere to go to buy their (Torquay) theatre and National Express tickets.

Indeed, when I last looked it seemed more than half of what was on offer at the Brixham TIC would take you out of town. What is the benefit in that?

If you are going to have a Tourist Information Centre, given 90 per cent of our visitors come by car from an easterly direction, the most logical place would be at the bottom of Telegraph Hill.

I would happily stand there with Carolyn Custerson and Robbie Robinson any Saturday afternoon, handing our leaflets and explaining why folks should stay in the left-hand lane for the A380 and the English Riviera, rather than taking the A38 for the South Hams, Plymouth and Cornwall.

The lion's share of our tourism budget should go on bringing visitors to Torbay, rather than worrying too much about where they spend their money when they get here.