Hare to stay

This is the Minotaur and Hare statue that peers at shoppers on Cheltenham's stylish Promenade.

The creation of Sophie Ryder, it is 9ft 5in high and was cast in bronze by Pangolin, just down the road from where I live in Stroud.

It was made in 1995 and was installed as part of a temporary exhibition by Ryder two years later. It was going to be removed, but it was decided that a piece from the exhibition should remain and this £50,000 statue was acquired by public subscription.

Cheltenham being Cheltenham, the town was divided over the statue. Half wanted it to stay, whiile the conservatives felt it had no place among the Regency architecture. Thankfully progress won the day.

I have an acquaintance - a successful sculptor and photographer - who had to run the same gauntlet of negativity here over the installation of his modern sculpture. And, although his work stayed, the experience was a damaging one.

There has to be a place for all kinds of art - from the traditional to the cutting edge.

Look at Paris, for example, where the Louvre shares space with the stunning Pyramid. And surely Barcelona would be worse off today if Gaudi's designs had been rejected by the stick-in-the-muds.

Anyway the Minotaur and Hare is a popular feature. People have their photos taken by it and it has become a meeting place in the town centre.