COUNTY council chiefs face a public grilling over the collapse of ambitous plans for direct flights from Kent International airport at Manston to America.

Opposition parties say they intend to summon key figures in the failed venture to answer questions to a cross-party watchdog committee about what went wrong with the ill-fated scheme.

The move comes as county council leader Paul Carter declined to rule out further investments in other commercial enterprises.

Council insiders say KCC earmarked as much as £150,000 to support and promote the transatlantic flights from east Kent to Virginia, some £60,000 more than the £90,000 that the council has publicly estimated will probably be written off.

Airline operator Cosmos recently pulled the plug on the planned weekly service after only 800 of the 10,000 tickets were sold ahead of the May launch.

Meanwhile, the political recriminations have continued, with Labour and Liberal Democrats councillors criticising KCC for backing a private airline operator with public money for a second time. The council lost £100,000 after EUjet ended package holiday flights out of Manston two years ago.

Opposition Labour leader Cllr Mike Eddy said KCC needed to come clean and answer questions about its projections for ticket sales and the scale of its investment.

“There is a legitimate role for the county council to put money in order to bring something about but when it is public money, you have to be sure that it is the best form of investment. It might have been better to spend this on improving the infrastructure in the area to make it more attractive,” he said.

Liberal Democrat leader Cllr Trudy Dean echoed: “It is a shame because Manston is a tremendous resource for Kent. But the lesson from is the same as before. If we as a county council are required to invest in something that the commercial sector itself is not prepared to invest in, then we ought to be very, very careful.”

Despite the setback, county council leader Paul Carter said he would not rule out making other investments in private companies if it boosted the Kent economy.

“We would have to look very, very closely as we always do with these enterprises. It is not unusual. Most of the destinations for cheap flights to Europe are being subsidised by local governments in those countries. Some of the investments we make won’t always come off,” he said.