Toad block on £200,000 arts cash

Yesterday Lib Dem leader Coun Carl Minns said he was withdrawing funding put up by Hull Council to install glass fibre sculptures of the animals round the city as part of a festival marking the 25th anniversary of the death of the poet Philip Larkin.

Last week Labour North Hull MP Diana Johnson questioned the council's 200,000 contribution towards the 292,000 cost.

A similar but smaller event in Skipton which is hosting a "flock of sheep" is costing 75,000.

The two events were inspired by the success of the Superlambanana parade in Liverpool, credited with attracting an extra million visitors to the city.

Since then there has been a cow parade in Manchester, "go penguins" in Liverpool, and "go elephants" in Norwich.

But Coun Minns said he did not believe it was a good use of public money: "I fully agree with Diana Johnson. I wish them luck if that's what they want to do to put Hull on the map but it is not something that I think Hull Council funding should be used on."

And he added: "The ideas have been put forward by a group of hardworking people who are enthusiastic about making this a success. I understand they are going off to try and do this on a smaller budget without council funding. If they can do this without the council funding I wish them well."

For organisers of "the plague of toads" the timing couldn't have been worse – just two days before the official launch of the prototype "mother toad" – but they are insisting a scaled-down event can go ahead.

Prof Graham Chesters, the chairman of the steering committee for Larkin25, said they had already been pledged 30,000 of private money for toads, and more than in educational sponsorship. "Even if we end up with 30 that will be something," he said.

Organisers will be using the launch tomorrow at Hull History Centre to urge businesses to sponsor individual toads, commissioning artists to decorate them with individual designs. They will be installed in time for the return of the Clipper fleet in July, forming a trail round the city.

Prof Chesters said he believed people had missed the point: "What I think people haven't grasped is it is extremely inspiring, brings in all the community and engages people at different levels and pulls in visitors like crazy. We still intend to do that as best we can.

"I'd just be disappointed that a project meant to engage young and all ages and attract tourism and investment for Hull, as it has done in Norwich, Liverpool and Manchester, that the idea in Hull can't work."

"The last thing I wanted to do with Larkin25 was have a small elite poetry-loving group of middle-class literature lovers.

"The point was everything Larkin was interested in, his doodles, jazz, poetry or novel-writing would serve as a springboard for other people to think and explore their own creativity and Toads were – and are going to be – its most visible and sensational aspects."

Some 25,000 of the council's money would have gone on the bronze statue at Paragon Station, Hull by the sculptor Martin Jennins, who made the statue of Sir John Betjeman at the remodelled St Pancras.

Prof Chesters said he thought Larkin, a former Hull University librarian, would have

been amused by the turn of events. "To see Labour and the Lib Dem politicians scrapping over something like this – when he was a High Tory – I think he would have been quietly amused."

Meanwhile in Skipton, a sheep decorated by local artist Anna Tosney is, according to the local council, garnering positive feedback. The rest of the flock will be set loose in August for three months.