IT was all so predictable. We report that cinema heart-throb Johnny Depp is set to appear in a film about drug addiction in Boscombe, a part of Bournemouth known for its rehab centres - and along comes a local councillor to kick up about it.

Barry Goldbart says all the good work the council has done to improve the quality of life in the area could be undone by Addict, whether it stars Depp, Brad Pitt or even the squeaky clean Beverley Sisters.

Now a game of ping-pong is being played out on this paper's letters pages, with local residents either backing Cllr Goldbart or welcoming the impending arrival of Johnny and his Magnificent Cheekbones.

Volunteer Norah Barnes, for example, writes to say that any of us could one day find ourselves down on our luck - and suggests her soup kitchen clients might even get work as extras.

Nigel Gillespie reckons Boscombe hasn't necessarily got better, it's just changed. And, writing from the safe distance of Wareham, Beau Chameau says the film will bring rubber-necking tourists flocking in.

I live not far from Boscombe, and drive through it all the time, but hardly ever stop.

When I was there recently, one mid-week mid-morning, it was largely empty except for kids brazenly playing truant and riding those weird little bikes up and down the pedestrian precinct.

My opinion, for what it's worth, is that Boscombe looks a little tired but actually has a lot going for it.

It has a wonderful arcade (sadly under-used), pleasant parks, interesting architecture, a run-down pier, lovely stretch of beach, good cafes, a market and lots of nice people.

Yes, there are also people living there who've been dealt a bum hand by life - and others who are generally up to no good. But Moss Side or Toxteth it ain't.

I'd have thought it would be quite a coup for a major Hollywood star to make a movie there.

New York, for example, has probably featured in more films than any other city, and millions of viewers and visitors are grown-up enough to realise that Martin Scorsese's gritty Mean Streets and Woody Allen's impossibly photogenic Manhattan are simply two very different ways of looking at it.

After Addict, perhaps ever-cheerful director Sir Dickie Attenborough could set the big-screen version of The Waltons in Walpole Road, just to redress the balance?

First published: May 24