It seemed a good idea at the time - to provide Harrogate with a fountain or water feature in the town centre.

With £5,000 promised from a sponsor and a good chance of more to come towards the £10,000 bill, Harrogate Civic Society set out to find a site.

However, years later the search for a suitable home for the fountain has proved fruitless.

Officials have been to look at Library Gardens, Montepellier Gardens and the Crown roundabout, all without a successful outcome.

As a result, officials are considering scrapping the idea.

A member of the society suggested the search should be concentrated on private, rather than public land, to see if it could find more success.

But chairman Lilian Mina said private sites had been investigated.

Mrs Mina said: "Harrogate must be the only spa town in Europe not to boast a single water feature. If we don't make progress soon, we shall have to walk away from the idea."

Meanwhile, the society contunies to liaise with the council to restore a disused pump-room alongside the Valley Gardens well-heads at Bogs Field.

The site is overgrown and neglected, and the chairman belives it will make an ideal visitor information centre.