Statue to be relocated in 'the very near future'

The 1963 Mother and Child statue has been restored to the original bronze colouring

A council has issued an update on the relocation of a statue within a Leicestershire town.

The 1963 Mother and Child statue was removed from outside Coalville Library in September and is now due to be re-installed at its original home in the Belvoir Shopping Centre.

North West Leicestershire District Council said the statue would be re-instated "in the very near future".

The bronze statue depicts a woman comforting her son and holding a shopping bag containing items linked to the former mining town.

Planning permission to install the statue at the Belvoir Road entrance to the shopping centre was approved on 28 June, but a further application to confirm details over the statue's positioning was submitted on 3 July.

Tom Stanyard, senior economic development officer at the authority, said the statue's new location would have "a lot more footfall" where "more people can appreciate her".

He previously had to reassure residents that it was “absolutely the same statue”, after rumours circulated that the statue had been replaced by a new sculpture.

Mr Stanyard also explained why the "complex" restoration had taken so long.

He said: “There are a lot of moving parts to the project, both physical and legal, but we’re really happy that in the very near future the statue will be re-sited."

The sculpture was removed last year to be restored thanks to £40,000 from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.

It was created by John Roydon Thomas and unveiled for the opening of a shopping centre in 1963.

The statue was later removed by developers and intended for scrap, but it was rescued from a skip by the district council and installed in front of the town's library in High Street in 1988.

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