NOTTINGHAM City Council has been criticised for funding a nine-day tour of visitor attractions in the US.

The local authority spent £5,000 on the trip taken by the Sheriff of Nottingham, Coun Leon Unczur and five others researching how to maximise the Robin Hood legend to benefit the city.

The TaxPayers' Alliance described the trip as an "excessive and unnecessary expense."

A spokesman said: "The practice of running tourist attractions is well documented.

"If they did feel the need to visit successful attractions there are plenty in this country they could have visited for far less."

The delegation jetted between New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Boston and Plymouth. They took six, including those to and from the country.

The tour took in 24 sites including New York's Statue of Liberty and San Francisco's Alcatraz Island in a bid to discover what makes a tourist attraction successful.

A city council spokesperson said half the £10,000 budget for the trip, which was completed last week, was contributed by regeneration agencies.

Coun Unczur said: "People will say you can do it on the internet but you have to talk to people, talk to customers, get feedback from them, meet the politicians.

"We went to learn how to make a big attraction with 'wow' factor. The Americans know how to do it."

Nottingham is planning a Robin Hood attraction which would attract up to one million visitors a year.