A Crowdfunding project to raise tens of thousands of pounds to build a life-size statue of an Ottery poet will restart next year.

The Coleridge Memorial Trust will recommence its efforts in the new year to raise the remaining funds to install a bronze statue in honour of Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

The project is estimated to cost £90,000 in total and at the beginning of November some £60,000 needed to be raised.

The project has been endorsed by Budleigh Salterton author Dame Hilary Mantel.

She said: "He was a visionary who helped shape our national imagination, and it is right that he should have a memorial in the place that shaped him, and in the very churchyard where he told his secrets of his heart to the grass and nettles."

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born in 1772 in the School House in Ottery. His father, John, was the vicar of the parish and master of the King's Grammar School.

The trust said due to the election and Christmas it would begin the fundraising in 2020.

On Twitter, the trust shared it would like to offer gifts of recognitions for 'exceptional' donations.

Donations of £100 or more will see donors' names entered into the trusts book of subscribers.

Bequests of £500 or more will receive a limited edition commemorative coin, which is finished with a portrait of Coleridge and a design of the mariner's ship in reverse.

For donations of £10,000 or more, the trust will present a statute of the second maquette cast in bronze, mounted on a wooden base.

There are 10 copies of the design by sculptor Nicholas Dimbleby and each one is inscribed with the sculptor's name and mark to identify it.

Planning permission was granted by the district council at the start of the year.

Including the plinth, the statue will be almost seven-and-a-half feet tall and will be made out of bronze, while the plinth will me made using granite.

The district council has stated construction must begin within the next three years setting a deadline of January 18 2022.

The statue will be placed on the south side of Ottery Parish Church, where the poet was known to spend his time as a boy.