Funding boost for Ottery’s Coleridge statue project
A perspective drawing of where the statue would be located outside the church. Picture: CHRISTOPHER WAKEFIELD - Credit: Archant
The Community Grants Panel agreed this morning (Tuesday, September 1) to pledge £5,160 to enable the Coleridge Memorial Trust to fund the crucial first stage of the project.
The trust has already raised £30,000 towards the overall cost of £80,000, but needed to ensure that a further £20,000 was in the kitty so that the initiative could move forward.
A crowdfunding campaign amassed £14,840 and the councillors agreed to make up the shortfall.
Speaking at the virtual meeting, Cllr Helen Parr said: “Coleridge has a tremendous connection to Ottery and I think a statue would be a worthy memorial to him.”
Mike Ferguson from the trust said the decision is ‘a wonderful result for us and the town’ and ‘everything we could have hoped for’.
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The trust will now work towards having the bronze, lifesize statue in place outside Ottery church in time for the 250th anniversary of Coleridge’s birth, in October 2022.
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