Boscombe will become home to a statue remembering Frankenstein’s Monster.

But instead of a scary creature with bolts through its neck, it will be a white dove.

The council has submitted a planning application for it to be installed in Shelley Park to remember author Mary Shelley.

Pupils at Avonbourne School developed the idea after MP Tobias Ellwood suggested a Frankenstein statue.

The sculpture, which is unfinished, is intended to be open to interpretation.

But Pat Clark, chairman of The Friends of Shelley Manor, said: “It’s a missed opportunity. It needs to be plainly obvious what it’s about – there’s so much interest from tourists.

“A dove is misleading to say the least. Anything modernistic and abstract is completely wrong for the era the Shelleys lived in.”

The school won an £18,000 grant from the Sita Trust, a recycling charity, and will contribute £2,000 itself.

Bournemouth Council has paid for the planning application so it can use the dove statue in a display at Hampton Court Flower Show.

The planning application says: “The theme of the concept is Frankenstein’s monster. The aim is to combine representational and symbolic fragments into a visual metaphor.”

Kathryn Loughnan, Avonbourne’s director of unique ethos, said the students want to convey despair and hope of the story.

She said: “The wings are so small that there’s no chance it could take off no matter how much it tried, like the monster’s hopes to be accepted.”

The statue will include twisted steel bars, a symbol of the surgical instruments used by Dr Frankenstein to create his monster.

Mary Shelley died aged 54 in 1851, before Shelley Manor was complete. She is buried in St Peter’s churchyard.

Bournemouth East MP Tobias Ellwood has worked with the school on ways to mark the town’s literary heritage. He suggested a Frankenstein statue after seeing the Einstein statue in Washington DC and hearing that is a draw for visitors.

The dove will weigh 1.3 tons and is made out of Carrara marble with bronze wings.

Sculptor Andy Kirkby, an Arts University College at Bournemouth lecturer, also created Boscombe’s Sea Road arts trail.