An 18-month wait for Weymouth's sculpture trail has been described as 'unacceptable' by borough councillor leader Jeff Cant.

He says that unless there is a push to get on with it the installations are unlikely to be started by the time the council disappears in April.

“This has taken a frustratingly long time...now we run the risk of not doing this by April,” he said.

Cllr Cant says the project, designed to make the town more attractive to visitors throughout the year, seems to have fallen into “a confusion over procurement.” He has called for a progress report in January.

He told councillors at the borough management committee on Tuesday that it appeared messages about what was wanted had been misunderstood.

The borough's management committee backed proposals to have several artists work on 6-8 installations and to include water stations incorporated into some of the creations in a sponsorship deal with Wessex Water – an idea which Cllr Cant admitted he was 'agnostic' about and which he feared would not be liked by some of the business community.

But Cllr Ray Nowak welcomed the water station idea which he said was environmentally friendly and would be much better for people, and the planet, to allow people to refill their own bottles for free, rather than buy what he described as “fizzy pop”.

“This scheme will encourage people to walk around the town and show how much it has to offer,” he said.

Cllr Gill Taylor said that including water refill stations was “a cracking idea”.

“We have got to do something to stop single-use plastics. I have no qualms about the effect it might have on businesses. We have got to do this,” she said.

The ideas was first agreed at a borough management committee in December 2017 and given a £123,000 budget.

Since then a public consultation exercise has been carried out by local arts group, B-side which discovered that people want a trail of sculptures that connect various sites around the town, with specific attention to Hope Square, New Bond Street and the Esplanade.

There was also a call for the artworks to tell a story about Weymouth, with a contemporary twist.

Said the B-side report: “Together, the artworks and water stations will animate the streets, connecting people and places, to produce an exciting and unique way of creating public art that is both useful, and beautiful.