Letters

What is the cost of raising Dickie's finger?

Don Wood, Roundacre, Barnsley: Recently there has been talk of raising Dickie Bird’s statue so people can’t stick various items on its out stretched finger.

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Sheathed: the Dickie Bird statue.

Friday 30th December 2011

Recently there has been talk of raising Dickie Bird’s statue so people can’t stick various items on its out stretched finger.

What concerns me is what this would cost because the organisation committee for the original failed to reach the target amount and more than £20,000 had to be provided by council tax payers’ money.

At the time the council said, they were underwriting this – that is they expected to recover this sum of money at some time in the future. So far I have not seen that this has been recovered and it would be interesting to know if it has.

If it hasn’t and there is no intention of getting it back then the use of the word underwriting was misleading and the public were hoodwinked. Clarification of this I think is required before we start wasting any more public money on such projects.

Comment on this story

Posted by Bonna on Sun 4th Mar 2012 at 12:55pm Stick it on the Plinth at the bottom of market hill.Find a use for it

Posted by EddieBent on Tue 31st Jan 2012 at 11:35pm Ah the price of fame 'Arrald.

Posted by thedoc on Thu 26th Jan 2012 at 02:17pm no public money should be spent on this - it shouldn't have been spent in the first place. The statue is well away from town centre so it should jsut be forgotten about

Posted by Alicattz on Sun 15th Jan 2012 at 12:03pm Some people find this statue offensive until they get close up and realise that it's the index finger that's pointing at you. My husband was one of them. He's not originally from this area and wanted to know why someone was sticking his middle finger up at the passing traffic. I just think it's in the wrong place. Maybe somewhere in the park to put him?