HANDS up if anyone knows which city has one of the best collections of art outside London in the United Kingdom?

Is it Bristol? Wrong. Newcastle then? Wrong again. Surely Edinburgh. Not even close. The answer is, believe it or not, Southampton.

The city's art collection is generally recognised as being one of the finest of any provincial city in the United Kingdom - with the exception of Birmingham's.

Yet the city's hidden art treasures fail to get sufficient appreciation because it is not recognised as being an "artistic" city.

All that though looks likely to change within the next decade when exciting plans for creating an "arts quarter" in the city come to fruition.

By 2007, north of the Guildhall which currently displays the city's art collection, a cultural quarter is set to be created in Northern Above Bar - creating the city's very own artistic "Wow" factor.

The area will incorporate the Mayflower Theatre, the City Art Gallery, Southampton Institute's Millais Gallery and the Central Library.

Two huge towers will be built on the site of the former Tyrrell and Green department store creating 200 high-quality apartments.

Underneath the towers, there are exciting plans to site Southampton University's John Hansard Arts Gallery, the city's Arts Asia Project and a performing arts space to replace The Gantry Theatre.

City leisure bosses hope that the creation of the "arts quarter" by 2007 will provide the spur for further schemes to revamp Guildhall Square and, later still, a redevelopment of the vacant former C&A building.

City council deputy leader and leisure boss Councillor Peter Wakeford said: "Performing art has been somewhat lacking in this city.

"There is not a venue like the Gantry used to provide but the arts quarter should change that.

"It will pull up that element of the city."

City chiefs are also waiting on the final go-ahead for a £5.75m grant from the Arts Council before building work on the first stage of the arts quarter is given the final go-ahead.

Cllr Wakeford added: "Once one development captures the imagination, it attracts others along with it."

Stephen Foster, the director of the university's John Hansard Gallery said: "We are in the process of trying to move to the city centre so that more local people can enjoy the work that we bring to an international audience."