Dartmouth councillors have been given a taste of how the town could be viewing its new-look market place, after it was condemned as a 'fiasco.'

Former Flavel project fundraiser John Mitchell forced one leading councillor to admit that as far as she is aware there had never been a formal business plan for the major market project.

And he declared that the costs had escalated so much that if the town council had been a business it would have gone bankrupt.

Mr Mitchell told councillors: 'We have what you could term a bit of a fiasco.'

The market's town council-owner saw the massive scheme to re-vamp the market loos and reshape the market building with a 21st century glass front- look, completed last August.

The bill for the toilet should have been around £87,000 but eventually came out at just over £100,000.

The cost of the work on the market started off at around £300,000 but finally came out at just under £500,000.

And even up until this month the council was still arguing with the architects over the final bill.

He pointed to the debate over whether the council should charge for the market toilets – or even close them to the public because of the cost of looking after them.

And he asked: 'How many more things can go wrong with the market development?

'There have been extreme cost overruns and has there ever been a business plan for the work that was done to the market square? What steps can you take to ensure that anything done like that again will be done properly? We have what you could term a bit of a fiasco.

'If this was a private business you would have gone bankrupt with all the over run.'

Cllr Debbie Morris, who is the chairman of the council's corporate property committee which has the responsibility for all council property, admitted there had been no business plan 'as such' but added: 'It was looked at very carefully.'

And she objected to the market scheme being labelled a 'fiasco' as she declared: 'It's a very successful project.'