Bob Wright accused council colleagues of talking the talk but being out of their depth when it came to the town centre,

Hitting out at the the authority for dismissing Dr Laurie Marsh’s development scheme, the Labour councillor said: “It’s quite simple, it’s very similar to what the council are doing, except rather than selling off the assets they would be keeping it and reaping the profits. The council currently leases land because it thinks that’s the only way to attract business.”

On the debunking of £750m fund report, he added: “It never was a case of him giving the money, people read ‘multi-millionaire and multi-million pound scheme’ to mean that he must be putting in his own money. But we’re not talking about amateur hour here, these were some major international companies involved.

“The current councillors are out of their depth. They need to explore it properly and not just dismiss it because they’re not in control.

“They talk the talk, but all of them are out of their depth.”