Am I the only one to notice the significance of a recent advertisement in the Echo, which says more about our city than the one it promotes – Portsmouth?

Park all day for £6 to include a shuttle bus and boat ride to Gunwharf Quay.

What a brilliant piece of marketing: advertise in your biggest rival city’s own newspaper, rubbing it in that you actually have a park and ride in your city. Then add a unique selling point – a boat!

It’s different, it’s fun, it’s value for money. Yes it’s a gimmick, a temporary, summer-only one, but that’s not the point.

The point is that it took vision to come up with it. Just as it took courage and vision to find land and money for the park and ride in the first place. Not content with pinching our big events and trying to muscle in on our cruise position, they now poach our shoppers.

Not to mention having some of the best museums and attractions in the south that make ours look like toy-town. Seems to me their investment is paying off already.

Our council will remind me of the “exciting” developments due at West Quay and Mayflower Park, but time will tell and experience suggests not to get too excited yet.

They’ll also tell us there is no money. Pompey finds it, Liverpool finds it, many other cities find it, why don’t we?

Where is the courage and vision in Southampton? Wake up city, the crown is slipping fast and Portsmouth’s park and ride (and clever marketing) is yet another nail in the coffin.

Phil Woodward, Southampton.