London’s Westminster Council has thrown out a proposal to erect a statue of Nelson Mandela on Trafalgar Square, saying the 3m would be more appropriately placed outside the nearby South Africa House.
The council, which has responsibility for the British capital’s West End, said the statue of the statesman would ”fail to enhance” the square.
London mayor Ken Livingstone, who made a personal plea to councillors to approve the siting of the statue on the north side of the square, announced plans to appeal immediately after the decision was taken late on Thursday.
Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott is empowered to take the final decision.
Westminster Council, which is run by the Conservative Party, took just 90 minutes to reject the application, after hearing in private from Livingstone, a left-wing member of the Labour Party, and Lord Richard Attenborough, the actor and film director. The proposal was also backed by dozens of politicians and well-known people, including the Reverend Jesse Jackson.
So many e-mails were sent to the committee in support of the application that the council’s computer system crashed. Westminster councillors said, however, the statue would interfere with views of the National Gallery and St Martin-in-the-Fields church, interfere with the flow of pedestrians and make it difficult to hold events in the square.
They backed putting the statue up in front of South Africa House, which houses the South African High Commission, on the eastern side of the square. The backers of the original scheme reject this as failing fully to honour Mandela, who turns 86 this month.
Livingstone lashed out at the committee, saying it would have no problem approving a statue of Margaret Thatcher, Tory leader through the 1980s, and claimed its members were opposed because Mandela is black. Attenborough took a more conciliatory line, saying he hoped the scheme could be amended.
”I’m not disappointed because the council said they most warmly welcomed the concept of the statue of Mandela to be erected in Trafalgar Square. What is in debate is precisely where that should be,” he said. — Sapa-DPA