DESPITE objections from Watchet Town Council and Watchet Market House Museum, members of Somerset West and Taunton Council’s planning committee will be recommended to grant retrospective planning permission for a memorial to one of the town’s best-loved characters at their meeting next Thursday.

Planning officers said this week the statue was not 'incongruous' and fitted with the local development plan.

Objectors claimed the gleaming stainless steel artwork to Derek the Goose, who met a mysterious and violent death in October, 2021, was out of keeping and out of place on the town’s Esplanade.

After the sculpture to the female snow goose was unveiled in October last year, an anonymous resident pointed out that full planning permission had not been applied for.

This led to a retrospective planning application and a support campaign organised by Carron Clark, who runs the Derek the Goose website.

Recommending approval of the application, planning officer Ben Gilpin said: “The retention of the memorial is not considered incongruous or detrimental to the character of the Watchet Conservation Area.

“The retention of the memorial would not interfere with the safe operation of Watchet Harbour and would not impede vehicle or pedestrian flows.

"The proposal accords with policies of the development plan."

Mr Gilpin added: “The site is in the Watchet Conservation area but has no other statutory designations."

As reported in the Free Press on February 3, the town council recommended refusal of the application and asked for the memorial to be moved elsewhere, preferably on the eastern quayside.

Watchet Conservation Society withdrew its objection to the memorial, by local artist Chris Philling, and took a 'neutral position' on the application.

But the Market House Museum’s committee believed the work was not in keeping with other works of maritime interest on the Esplanade 'being of stainless steel, bright, and modern'.

It said the use of solar lights and plastic fittings was incongruous. 

The committee added: “The museum is not averse to modern art but strongly feels that this work would be better sited near the East Quay where the buildings are more in keeping with this type of sculpture.”