SPECTACULAR lights could be used to illuminate Southampton landmarks including the Itchen Bridge, the Daily Echo can reveal.

City bosses have unveiled the idea after we told yesterday of plans to fire lasers across the city skies from the clock tower on the Civic Centre building - creating the longed for Wow factor.

Travellers approaching Southampton by rail, car, sea or air will be greeted by four giant laser beams shining from the top of the Grade II listed clock tower.

When installed, the green lasers dubbed The Southampton Laser Gateway will be visible 15 miles away - the Isle of Wight in the south, the New Forest in the west, Winchester to the north and Waterlooville in the east.

The £249,000 cost of the lasers will be paid for by the South East of England Development Agency (SEEDA) and will cover the show for five years with most of the cash being spent on start-up costs.

The lasers will use the energy equivalent to just six personal computers and will be switched on from dusk until midnight - minimising light pollution.

Now the team behind the ground-breaking scheme say other plans are on the drawing board to make the most of Southampton's iconic structures - as well as the key entrances to the city.

Top of their list is the 1970s Itchen Bridge, long thought of as one of the city's most spectacular sights.

The Southampton Partnership, a body made up of business, community and council representatives which promotes the city, worked for six months on the project after hiring consultants to check on how the city could smarten-up its image.

Chairman Ros Cassy said: "It is very thrilling. We sit as a partnership with investment funding and a team of people producing great ideas."

City council leader Councillor Adrian Vinson said everybody who had heard about the laser project had been excited by it.

He added: "People in the business community think it is going to put Southampton on the map. We think it will symbolise Southampton's place as a key city in the central south. It makes an imaginative 21st century statement."