'Colchester should join this list of Unesco World Heritage Sites'

Sometimes we are guilty of focusing on the faults with our historic borough.

But actually when you are sat on a bench in Castle Park eating ice creams with the family you soon realise things aren’t that bad.

In fact we’ve got so much going for us here, with excellent transport links to international ports, airports and the City of London.

Life is family friendly, with our schools among the best in the country and we are lucky to have such wonderful parks, green spaces, woodlands and the beautiful Mersea Island.

Since becoming a father I ponder on what the future will look like for my family.

I’ve spent time working in London as well on Severalls Business Park and I wonder what future generations will do for work here?

Our children complete their A-Levels, go to university and in many cases end up working professionally elsewhere (although increasingly our youngsters are becoming interested in apprenticeships and on-the-job training routes) but do we have enough medium and large-scale employers to prevent a brain drain?

Are we reaching out enough to businesses and employers looking to relocate from the crowded, and real estate expensive-London, to the borough of Colchester?

There are no doubt going to be exciting employment opportunities based around Essex University, offshore energy, bio, med and green tech too.

On the matter of the state of the town centre, if I had £1 for every time someone has said to me there are too many eateries and hairdressers on the High Street I would be retiring earlier.

The truth is traditional shopping has been fundamentally turned on its head by the internet.

Prior to that “out-of-town” retail and supermarkets with their free car parking made a huge impact. This is why within the historic core of Colchester we must realise the tourism potential by continuing to invest in our heritage assets.

We have an excellent Castle Museum situated within the awesome Castle Park but more work needs to be done to protect and promote our Roman sites such as the walls, the first Christian Church in the country, the Roman Circus, Gosbecks Archaeological Park and more contemporary heritage of interest such as St Botolph’s.

Creating a Unesco World Heritage Site would put Colchester on the map and bring tourists in who would stay in our hotels, eat in our restaurants and help to keep a healthy and diverse shopping offering more sustainable.

I accept that heritage alone isn’t the silver bullet to resolve regenerating the town centre. There is also a strong case to encourage people to live above the shops and in car-free apartments around transport hubs such as St Botolph’s train station.

Twenty years ago the council wanted to build a giant glass and chrome shopping centre as part of a scheme called Vineyard Gate.

I suspect now the case for this idea has faded and the future might involve more residential dwellings which in turn will help ensure the sustainability of shops and services within the town centre - and, yes, no doubt a few burger bars and Turkish hairdressers too.

* Darius (Con) is standing in the Castle Ward against Mark Goacher (Green), Victoria Weaver (Labour) and Verity Woolley (Lib Dem).

Unesco World Heritage Sites in the UK

• Castle and walls of King Edward in Gwynedd
• Durham Castle and Cathedral
• Giant’s Causeway
• Ironbridge Gorge
• St Kilda
• Stonehenge, Avebury
• Studley Royal Park
• Blenheim Palace
• City of Bath
• Frontiers of Roman Empire (including Hadrian's Wall)
• Palace of Westminster and Westminster Abbey
• Canterbury Cathedral, St Augustine’s Abbey, and St Martin’s Church
• Henderson Island
• Tower of London
• Edinburgh
• Maritime Greenwich
• Heart of Neolithic Orkney
• Blaenavon Industrial Landscape
• Derwent Valley Mills
• Dorset and East Devon Coast
• New Lanark
• Saltaire
• Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
• Liverpool – Maritime Mercantile City
• Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape
• Pontcysyllte Aqueduct
• The Forth Bridge
• Gorham’s Cave Complex
• The Lake District