Councillors in Bahrain are planning to spend BD100,000 ($262,000) on a giant birdhouse - saying they hope it will rival London's Trafalgar Square as a tourist destination.

The project has been earmarked for Isa Town and is the brainchild of the Central Municipal Council, which has rejected initial ideas presented by the Central Municipality, said a report in our sister publication, the Gulf Daily News.

However, municipality director-general Dr Mohammed Hassan accused councillors of being too vague and said engineers responsible for commissioning the project did not know what the council wanted.

"We don't know if the council wants a giant pigeon house or just a pigeon monument, which is for practical use," he said.

"Proper designs cost a lot and we couldn't waste money getting them from a consultant for the council to throw them away later, so we decided to do it ourselves as a general approach. But, we can assign a specialised company if the council selects a location out of the four suggested by us - rather than leave it open."

The council has now put the project on hold until new designs are submitted.

Its towns and villages development committee chairman and Isa Town councillor Khalid Amer described the initiative as "an important monument that the whole country will talk about".

As such he said he was disappointed with the lack of progress by the municipality.

"We thought that the municipality had gone a long way, but from what has been presented they have not even started," he said.

"There should have been more efforts from the responsible engineer rather than a last-minute job that doesn't satisfy anyone. We have in mind something better than Trafalgar Square or downtown Paris - a simple birdhouse that is at the same time a future tourist attraction."

The council has selected a site near the Isa Town Mall for the giant birdhouse.

It chose the location over other proposed sites near the Isa Town Gate, the Indian School and on the Isa Town Traditional Market car park.

Amer now hopes the designs will be presented to the council soon to allow the start of work to coincide with Bahrain's National Day celebrations.

"This will be an important monument that the whole country will talk about and we hope it lives up to expectations," he said. – TradeArabia News Service