IF we allow the past to dictate the present, we shall lose the future. Not my words (I wish I was so clever) and variously attributed to Winston Churchill and John F Kennedy.

But if ever there was a place where these wise words provide a warning, it is Torbay.

Here is somewhere of incomparable natural beauty, which enjoys a kind climate and where previous generations have provided us with an extraordinary legacy of achievement.

However, we now endure all the social and economic deprivation of some inner city neighbourhoods.

The facts are dismal. Torbay has the weakest economy in the entire South West region, the highest unemployment, low wages and exceptional levels of benefit dependency.

Our housing list is thousands long as local families on modest wages cannot compete in the housing market.

Health inequalities are gross: men in better off neighbourhoods live, on average, eight years longer than their contemporaries in the central areas of Torquay and Paignton.

Suicide rates are high, as are bankruptcies and alcohol-related illness.

We were named and shamed again last month, this time by Ed Balls on national TV, for our high rates of teenage conception.

Just how bad do things have to become before folk wake up to the fundamental need to do things differently, to embrace change, welcome investment and regeneration?

If I had to sum up my job for the last four years in a nutshell, I would say it has been all about making the case for change in a place which must change, but where the resistance to change seems overwhelming.

Change is inevitable, but if it is not planned then you will end up with the wrong sort of change: decline.

This is apparent in our high streets, where familiar names have disappeared, and also where you see boarded up hotels and once grand villas carved up into tiny bedsits.

When I am asked to talk to community groups and outline the Mayoral Vision, I always try to make it a personal story and explain how there is such a contrast between the Torbay of the 1960s and 1970s, when I was growing up here, and the Torbay of more recent years.

All those years ago, it was an exciting, prosperous place.

Tourism was booming, so was manufacturing and there was a huge amount of house building underway.

This provided a solid economic base for a thriving professional sector as well.

I was sent away to boarding school in Taunton and I remember walking into town on Wednesday and Saturday afternoon 'half holidays' to buy chips (the school food was pretty grim).

For a youngster like me, from then prosperous Paignton, parts of Taunton in the 1970s seemed like the third world: dingy shops, derelict garages, vast areas of abandoned land by the railway station.

Thirty five years on, the contrast could not be greater: Taunton is now a bustling commercial and professional centre, whereas Paignton, with so much potential, has taken a huge hit from the demise of Nortel and changing patterns in tourism.

It will never be possible to recreate the 1960s and 1970s. I have always made it clear the one thing I cannot do (but which a substantial number of people appear to want me to do) is to turn the clocks back.

But it is worth looking at why the post war period was a time of success for Torbay and it might help us understand why the present is so troubled.

In fact, the Bay has enjoyed two periods of prosperity: first, after the railways came in the 19th century, and then the later 20th century prosperity I have already described (and enjoyed).

Go back 200 years and Brixham was the only place of any size around Tor Bay (two words).

Torquay comprised a few cottages around a harbour, with various outlying settlements and Torre Abbey, of course. Paignton was not much of a place at all until the railway came in 1859.

Change then was spectacular and perhaps it was just as well there were no preservation groups or 'save this!' and 'stop that!' campaigns.

Great villas and terraces were constructed, completely out of scale with what was there before. Imagine these being approved by the planning committee now!

Accompanying all this were a range of industrial activities, paintworks in Brixham, potteries in Torquay, great gas works at Hollicombe, and, later, a power station by Torquay harbour.

Quarrying carried on at Berry Head until the 1960s — go back one generation and we were literally destroying the place, lump by lump.

Now there is a furore because somebody wants to upgrade a holiday park.

The towns which now make up Torbay once thrived because they met the needs of the time and were allowed to prosper and grow.

Against the backdrop of this stunning natural environment, previous generations created modern towns which met contemporary needs.

Seen in this context, the Mayoral Vision and my support for many more regeneration projects across Torbay is hardly revolutionary.

The words in the Mayoral Vision are more important than the drawings, although it is the drawings which have caused the greatest upset.

It describes a place the size of a city (if we were a city, with a population of 135,000 we would be half way up the league table).

We endure the downside of city living — all the deprivation I outlined at the start of this essay.

Yet we do not enjoy the upside of city living: the sort of shopping centres, transport links, a university perhaps, or even the cultural 'buzz' you might expect in a place of this scale.

The Mayoral Vision is a prospectus for investment and highlights 20 or so sites which would benefit from regeneration.

It acknowledges what makes the place special, and seeks to inspire investment so we can enjoy a built environment which matches the best of the past, as well as complementing our stunning natural environment.

Many of the sites highlighted for investment are in our town centres and by waterfronts.

Surely it makes more sense to bring these areas to life rather than sprawling out into anonymous suburbs, where you could be almost anywhere?

I genuinely believe Torbay could be on the eve of another more prosperous age.

There are so many schemes on the drawing board and quite a few actually underway.

Remarkable progress is being made, especially considering the poor national economy.

Nobody wants to build over every blade of grass. Nobody wants to spoil Torbay and see it become a pale imitation of Dubai or anywhere else.

The essential character of the three different towns contribute to the charm of the place and are highlighted in the Mayoral Vision.

But some very difficult and controversial decisions will need to be made in the next 15 months.

To secure the future, we must certainly learn lessons from our past.

However, it would be a tragedy for Torbay if a vocal minority, dead set against change, and often looking at the past through rose tinted spectacles, were allowed to scupper our attempts at regeneration.