A decision by Cornwall Council to spend £50,000 of taxpayers money on supporting the bid to bring World Cup football to Plymouth in 2018 has been slammed by opposition polititians.

It has been revealed that Councillor Alec Robertson, leader of the the authority, provided the funding through the leader's contingency fund.

The bid to bring the World Cup to England failed when FIFA executives chose to take the prestigious tournament to Russia instead.

Councillor Alex Folkes, Lib Dem Shadow Cabinet Member for Leisure, Libraries and Culture said: "I'm horrified that anyone could have thought that spending such a large amount of money on this project was worthwhile.

"At the time when the decision was made, we already knew that Cornwall was facing huge cuts.

"We are cutting a total of £170 million and losing around 2,000 staff.

Among the cuts are a 40 per cent slashing of the budget for supporting people who are homeless or vulnerably housed, a £4 million cut in the adult care budget and the loss of more than 90 hours per week in our library service.

"Even within the leisure service there are huge cuts. The future of Camelford Leisure Centre and Bude Sea Pool remain uncertain in spite of funding being extended for an additional year in response to uproar in the local areas at the original plans.

"Any of these frontline services would have been a far better use of the money than throwing £50,000 at a campaign that had little chance of success."

A council statement said that the decision to support the bid had been made along with other neighbouring authorities, and that considerable benefits would have been brought to the area had it proved successful.