Councillors have given the go-ahead for a statue of Queen Elizabeth II to be built in a Gravesend park.

Members of Gravesham council's regulatory board last night approved plans for the bronze sculpture to be installed in St Andrew's Gardens, just off Crooked Lane.

The council has previously said that if planning permission was approved it intended to be able to unveil the statue this autumn.

Only an outline sketch of the structure has been released with details being kept under wraps until the grand reveal later this year.

The public has only been told it will be made from bronze and will sit on a plinth of Portland stone - a limestone from the Tithonian stage of the Jurassic period quarried on the Isle of Portland in Dorset.

The statue is being created by sculptor Douglas Jennings ARBS who made the Pujji statue, also in St Andrew’s Gardens.

The £200,000 required to pay for the Queen statue has been provided by mystery private benefactors.

One damaged tree is being removed from St Andrew's Gardens before the statue is erected and a replacement will be planted in the first planting season after its installation.

When the council commissioned the statue in January 2016 it was to mark the Queen's 90th birthday that year.

However, official paperwork now says the sculpture will honour 65 years of Her Majesty's reign, which she will achieve in June 2018.