THE leader of Worcestershire County Council is calling for serious "long term" goals to be set - saying he wants to draw inspiration from thriving Cambridge.

Councillor Adrian Hardman, the Tory leader at County Hall, says the release of a new 50-page dossier for Worcestershire is an ideal chance to plan far into the future.

In the 1990s, decision-makers in Cambridgeshire decided to get together and create a big blueprint for the next two decades.

Called 'Cambridgeshire Horizons', it brought together the ideals for the famous university and its city and county councils working together.

That document is now credited with helping rapidly transform the area, based around the thriving city of Cambridge, and now Worcestershire has published a first draft of its own called 'Next Generation' for the period up to 2040.

As your Worcester News revealed in January, it aims to pull together a raft of targets for 2020 and 2040 to ensure Worcestershire can compete as a place to live, work and play.

Cllr Hardman took part in a Q&A about it before councillors on the county's watchdog-style overview, scrutiny and performance board (OSPB).

"It's always been a concern of mine that we don't have a top-line, goal setting strategic plan, I've always thought it pretty odd," he said.

"If you look at bodies like Transport for London they've got a 25-year plan that they refresh, Severn Trent has a reasonably ambitious plan that lasts for some 30 years, the British Airport Authority and some of the banks have this 'long term goal planning'.

"Cambridge did something similar back in the 1990s with a document entitled 'Cambridge horizons' that was city driven, university driven and last but not least county council driven.

"Until then, because they felt they had something unique with the university there was very little connection between that and the city council, and I daresay virtually none between the university, city and county."

The report, which has been compiled by a thinktank called the Shenstone Group, calls for all county shopping centres to be less reliant on shops, "universal" web access in every home by 2020, "dramatic" reductions in housing waiting lists and more funding to create an education sector considered genuinely 'world class'.

During the debate Councillor Richard Udall, who chairs the OSPB, said he feared it "ending up dusting on the shelf" after the initial "blaze of publicity".

Tory Councillor Kit Taylor said he feared north Worcestershire being swallowed up by Birmingham.

Cllr Hardman said Worcestershire's "landscape, environment and people" are what makes the county unique and all targets should reflect that.