THE District Auditor will not take action against Worcester councillors despite claims they have wasted taxpayers' money by cancelling the city's Millennium Quayhead Scheme.

Labour leader, Coun David Barlow, alerted auditor David Rigg about the aborted scheme after nine members of the policy and resources committee - eight Tories and one independent - voted to axe a project to install fibre-optics in the quayside.

Council officers say the decision has cost the authority more than £40,000. The council had also allocated £7,000 donated by Worcester millionaire Cecil Duckworth.

Coun Barlow, who had hoped that the nine councillors would be financially penalised or dropped from office, told Tuesday's full council meeting that the auditor's powers were limited.

His motion that councillors scrapping the scheme, which he said would have been almost completely funded by Lottery cash and donations, had behaved with reckless indifference and were petty-minded was defeated by 19 votes to 14.

He said the council deeply regretted the rapid decline since the Tories took control, from prudent management of its finances to prejudiced incompetence.

Coun Barlow said the auditor had told him it was right and proper for the opposition Labour group to have taken the action.

"I recognise there's a shallow, narrow-minded attitude here," he told the Tories. "Which will not be swayed by artistic, rational or even financial arguments.

"We will continue because that's our role as an opposition to expose this absolute scandal to Worcester people."

Coun Roger Berry said the council had accepted the grant with one hand and thrown it back with the other.

"Grants like this won't be coming back to Worcester again," he said. "It was one of the few to be given outside London. We haven't done a very good job at putting Worcester on the map."

But Coun Stephen Inman said the Tories had always opposed the scheme and suggested bringing in the district auditor had been a deliberate attempt to frighten or embarrass the ruling group into submission.

"We've been entirely vindicated," he said.

He questioned its ability to attract visitors and said artistic delays meant it would not have been completed in the Millennium year.

He suggested it would have cost more like £250,000 and would not have been entirely covered by donations.

"We'll come up with something more attractive for a lesser cost," he said.

"We're determined to give the citizens of Worcester value for money."