A GIANT King Canute could soon be adorning an area on Toft Road after town councillors agreed a deal with an artist.

The King Canute sculpture is at Tatton Park, but is due to be placed in front of the town council offices on Toft Road opposite the town’s Curzon cinema.

It has been handed over free of charge but will cost almost £4,000 to install it in the grounds of the town council offices if the land owner – Cheshire East Council – approves the idea.

The cost would include installing concrete footings to hold the sculpture in place and planting flowers and shrubs around it.

Clrs Peter Coan and Vivien Davies and deputy town clerk Adam Keppel-Garner met Pickmere-based artist Christine Willcox-Baker to discuss where the sculpture would be placed.

At a meeting of the environment committee Clr Tony Dean questioned if the committee had enough funds to approve the idea.

“Has there been any thoughts about the maintenance costs?” he asked.

He was told the plants and shrubs would be low maintenance and the sculpture was made from stainless steel so would weather well and would not require painting.

Clr Dean added: “It will look spectacular, but from my experience in my garden I would say not all bushes are low maintenance.”

Clr Forbes said it would be better if the money for the installation was taken out of the council’s reserves rather than the committee’s budget.

“It may be better to get full council to transfer it across for a special project,” he said.

“I don’t think we should take money from other areas of our committee’s budget to balance our books, we should take the money from full council.”

Clr Forbes said the committee should seek clarification from the land owner – Cheshire East Council – to see if it was OK to go ahead with the proposal and then it should be given the go-ahead subject to full council transferring the funds across.

At that point Clr Dean queried how the King would be arriving at his new home.

“Will he be crossing the river?” he quipped.