The latest designs for a new miners' memorial on Station Road in Biddulph have been sent back to the architect again after councillors gave a mixed reaction to the new drawings.

Councillors viewed the latest designs at a meeting of the authority's Town and Community Committee last night (Tuesday), and agreed that the latest designs were an improvement on those they had been sent previously, but still felt that the designs needed more changes.

Biddulph Nub News reported previously how councillors had expressed their disappointment at the designs they were originally sent, and had asked BP Architecture to draw up new designs for councillors to reconsider at a later date.

Councillors got to view these latest designs at last night's meeting and gave their reactions, with Cllr Kevin Jackson saying: "I'm much happier with this design than the previous ones, although I think a little bit more height might be useful."

He also commented on plans to engrave bricks on the memorial with the names of miners throughout the town's history, adding: "If we are going ahead with the miners' names I think we will need to know the number of bricks there will be."

Cllr John Jones also felt that the memorial's plinth needed to be higher to make sure there would be room for all of the miners' names.

He said: "It has been drawn up with a plinth this time, which is what we asked for, but it still isn't really what we briefed them to provide us, which was something considerably taller than that.

"It would need to be at least chest height to get the number of names in that we need. It's better, but it needs to be at least twice as high. It's frustrating that we can't get to a design - we've had a molehill and a saucer when we wanted something taller."

The council agreed in October to buy an area of land on Station Road from Sainsbury's for £4,000, as part of the authority's plans to develop the land near the supermarket into a community garden and a miners' memorial.

Councillors agreed to again return the plans to BP Architecture and ask them to revisit the design again and make the plinth higher.

Once the council is satisfied with the plans it will consult with a range of residents and organisations in the town to try and ensure that people are happy with how the gardens and memorial will look.