Statue connundrum

One hundred naked cast iron figures created by Anthony Gormley should stay on a Merseyside beach, the artist said. Planners cited safety reasons when they blocked proposals to keep the work Another Place on Crosby Beach.

"This work works at Crosby Beach better than it does anywhere else," said Mr Gormley who has exhibited the statues in Germany, Norway and Belgium.

Another Place Ltd - the company which wants to keep the statues in Crosby - is making a fresh planning application.

The work is made up of iron life-size casts of Gormley which are rooted on to the beach at scattered locations over three kilometres. They are visible when the tide is out but become submerged when the water is in.

Sefton Council's planning committee voted on Wednesday against keeping the attraction because of fears over safety. These included incidents of visitors being cut off by the tide after walking out to the farthest statues and the danger submerged statues posed to boats.

But Mr Gormley said: "I think it is part of the risk-averse culture that Britain has turned into. Crosby is a very industrial beach, it can't be used for swimming - its a got an extremely serious rip tide and this (the artwork) is not a bad use for the beach."

Another Place Ltd - the not for profit company whose members include TV presenter Lloyd Grossman and Lewis Biggs Chief Executive of Liverpool Biennial - hopes to raise £2m to keep the work in Crosby. It was formed by members of Merseyside's artistic community who believed the popular attraction should remain on the Merseyside coast.

A spokeswoman said it was making a last attempt to keep the work off Crosby by making a fresh planning application to Sefton Council. She said that the statues had attracted many tourists with an unpublished study suggesting 600,000 people had visited them since they were installed 18 months ago.

The spokeswoman also said however, that there was a possibility the statues could still stay on Merseyside with the Wirral coast being a possible venue. The statues are due to be taken down on 31 October and moved on to New York next month as originally planned.

Another Place Ltd said that if the statues were retained on Merseyside the artist would make some more to send to the US.