Campaigners won the first round of their battle to keep the Antony Gormley statues on Merseyside last night. Jessica Shaughnessy reports
Liverpool Daily Post
IMPASSIONED protests from across the globe made Sefton council's chief executive realise he couldn't let Another Place go without a fight.
Last night, Graham Haywood said the council was committed to resolving the issues that made its planning committee reject an application to extend the Antony Gormley statues' stay on Crosby beach for another four months.
Mr Haywood said: "If we had just had one or two letters about this, we would have had to let it go, but the response has been staggering, both from the public and the media across the region, the country and the world.
"People cannot understand why any authority would be crass enough to give such an opportunity up.
"That is why council leaders have asked me to urgently seek a way forward to make sure that this golden opportunity to really revitalise this part of Sefton and Merseyside is not lost." Mr Haywood praised the Daily Post campaign for capturing the public's mood since the decision last Wednesday.
He said: "We need to keep that momentum up, it is making a difference.
"Last week, it was thought that the general feeling about this was split down the middle, but the reality is we cannot say that any more." Another Place, which features 100 iron men fixed into the sand on Crosby Beach, was due to be dismantled next week.
The life-sized figures, made from a cast of the artist's naked body, were originally destined for New York after 18 months in Merseyside, but proved so popular that a campaign was launched to keep them.
Gormley backed the campaign, and it was widely believed that the iron men would become a permanent fixture in Crosby.
