SURFERS, sea anglers and birdwatchers have trumped art lovers to ensure that Antony Gormley’s installation of 100 iron men looking out to sea from Crosby beach is dismantled.

Sefton council’s planning committee says that Another Place has to go on health and safety grounds. Weather and tidal conditions mean that removal of the statues, due to go to New York in November, must start this month.

More than 600,000 people have been to see the iron casts, replicas of the artist’s body. Visitors had photographs taken with their arms over the statues’ shoulders, some adorning them with football scarves.

Gormley said: “I am deeply disappointed . . . I have been overwhelmed by the response of so many people in the area and outside who have given their support and shared with me the sense of achievement in creating Another Place in this extraordinary setting. I hope that we can change this decision and not let bureaucracy triumph over art.”

Campaigners were seeking to make the work permanent.

The iron men were less popular among displaced windsurfers. Sea anglers called them a hazard and birdwatchers raised concerns about wildlife.

Planning officers had backed extending planning permission for four months to give campaigners time to canvass support and raise £2 million to buy the work. But councillors voted against.

Debi Jones, a Conservative, said that “people had tried to get to the farthest statue and got stuck when the tide turned”.

Laurie Peake, of Another Place Ltd, said: “I am completely dismayed. We received statements from the coastguard and the RNLI saying they had no objections.”