By Matt Jarram, Local Democracy Reporter
A life-size statue of world-renowned writer and poet D.H. Lawrence is being planned for Eastwood.
Broxtowe Borough Council has already received £25,000 of outside investment to get the project off the ground.
The council is now applying to the Government for extra cash so it can capitalise on the famous writer’s connection to the Nottinghamshire town.
Several potential places have been identified for the statue, including the town centre, next to the Millennium Clock, or near the D.H. Lawrence Birthplace Museum on Victoria Street.
There are also plans to create a D.H. Lawrence tour of the town, which would include famous places associated with the writer.
D.H. Lawrence, born in 1885 in Victoria Street in Eastwood, is well known for novels including Sons and Lovers, Lady Chatterley’s Lover and Women in Love.
The house where he was born, 8a Victoria Street, is now the D.H. Lawrence Birthplace Museum.
Councillor Milan Radulovic, leader of the Labour-run Broxtowe Borough Council, said the town needs to thrive as a tourist destination.
He said the statue could be similar in style to the Brian Clough statue just off Old Market Square in Nottingham City Centre, which attracts thousands of visitors a year.
He said: “People like a focus, like the Brian Clough statue, they stand outside it and get their picture taken. Then they show their family and friends all over the world.
“This is the same thing. They can send it to their relatives in Canada and America and say ‘look I was in Eastwood’.
“D.H. Lawrence has a very strong overseas connection. He is big in Japan and China and South America and in parts of Europe where most western literature was banned but D.H. Lawrence was not.”
Broxtowe Borough Council is in the process of submitting a £20 million pound application to the Government’s Levelling Up fund, which supports town centres with extra cash.
The funding would ‘capitalise on D.H. Lawrence’s reputation.’
“If we don’t get it we are still looking to go ahead with the statue,” he added.
“We used to get bus tours from all over the world but there was never enough in Eastwood to keep them here and spending money in the town. We are looking to develop that package.
“We want to make Eastwood like Beeston, a destination not just a town.”
