BRISTOLIAN Paul Potts, now an international opera star, says he hopes a new concert arena will one day be built in his home city.

Ahead of his appearance at the city's Harbour Festival this weekend, Mr Potts says it's wrong that music lovers have to travel to other cities to see big names perform.

"I had a number of discussions while I was on the council for an arena," he told the Evening Post. "But unfortunately they all got shelved. Bristol, for a city of its size, should have one, otherwise people travel to London to the O2 or the CIA in Cardiff.

"But it does have some wonderful venues such as St Georges on Brandon Hill and Bristol is always such a great place to go to. It is always great to perform somewhere that has really good acoustics."

The Bristol-born celebrity and former city councillor who shot to fame winning the first series of Britain's Got Talent is set to grace the BBC Anchor Square stage on Sunday after jetting in especially from Germany.

The 39-year-old grew up in Fishponds and has come a long way since singing in the choir at Christchurch and putting on hold his initial dream of a life in the service of the church.

"When I was very young I wanted to be a vicar as they sung every Sunday," he said.

"It was something I loved to do. Singing was like the impossible dream. How could you do something you loved doing as a job?"

Britain's Got Talent gave him the break he needed and within a matter of days his performance had been viewed by millions of people around the world on YouTube and a new opera phenomenon was born.

He's rubbed shoulders with Oprah Winfrey, sold more than three million copies of his debut album and sung in halls and arenas from Lima to Seoul.

Before storming the charts though Mr Potts worked in Bristol selling mobile phones and as a Liberal Democrat councillor before moving to Port Talbot in 2001.

He went to St Mary Redcliffe and Temple School, has fond memories of strolling across Vassal's park and Brandon Hill and will be having a slightly less anonymous wander around the festival on the weekend.

"If anybody had told me what would happen to me I would have told them they were crazy," said Mr Potts, whose third album, a collection of classic film theme tunes is expected to be released in Asia in the autumn with a European date following shortly afterwards.

Now he is looking forward to an arena being built in the city to draw artists such as himself to the South West on a more regular basis.

Performing outside though is something Mr Potts particularly enjoys due to the buzz of the crowd and not knowing quite how many people are going to turn up.

"I've played some gigs where they were expecting a few thousand people to appear and 35,000 have turned up," he said. "It is mind boggling when you have thousands of people screaming your name."

Nerves are still an issue for the tenor, even for a home-town session.

"Every performance I do I always feel very nervous," he admitted. "It is a necessary evil as if you are not nervous you don't have any adrenaline and it is more like, 'oh well I have to go to work today'. Singing still excites me."

Mr Potts will be singing three songs, including Nessun Dorma, on the BBC Anchor Square Stage at 1pm on Sunday.