Marianne Alcock, the project’s proponent, has been lobbying the council before it discusses the matter later this month. One of the dolphin statues has won $3000 in funding from Arts Mid North Coast.

But Ms Alcock said a message had been relayed from mayor Jan McWilliams that she should not speak publicly about her vision for up to 30 sculptures across the twin towns. The correspondence, she said, came through councillor Leigh Vaughan, who is on the dolphin project’s planning committee.

“I was told the mayor said ‘you can’t go to the press, no you can’t do that’,” Ms Alcock said.

“It all came from Leigh, that if the community got really excited about it and council knocked it on the head, the community would be upset. But 99 per cent of the feedback I’ve had from people has been positive. They laugh and think it’s cool.”

Cr McWilliams said she supported a plan to trial two dolphin sculptures, one of which would be the Arts Mid North Coast-funded instalment. She denied trying to censor public discussion of the idea.

“That’s absolute crap,” she said.

“It’s absolutely ludicrous. Those words never, ever passed my lips. You can give it all the publicity you like. I said what we would do is put the two dolphins in first, and go from there.”

Cr Vaughan said she didn’t want to say anything “condescending” about Ms Alcock, who she described as “a dynamo”, but had urged her to exercise “caution” when speaking publicly.

“Yes, the approval is there for funding two dolphins, and yes, there are ideas for the future,” she said.

“But there’s a process to go through including public consultation before we can say we’re going ahead with more.”

The Advocate understands that some of the project’s backers are worried some councillors will characterise the proposal as a waste of public funds in a tough economic climate, although the plan is for interested local businesses to pick up most of the tab.