A PLAN to move a statue of suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst from outside Parliament has been shelved after a public backlash.

The statue has stood in Victoria Tower Gardens, Westminster, since 1930, but the Emmeline Pankhurst Trust wanted to move it three miles away to Regent’s University in London’s Regent’s Park.

Opponents of the plan argued that a statue of someone who played a major role in the campaign to secure votes for women should remain by Parliament.

Former Tory MP Sir Neil Thorne, representing the trust, had submitted the planning application to Westminster City Council, claiming that the Pankhursts had “no historical connections” with Victoria Tower Gardens. The Trust wanted to put a replacement statue in Parliament Square, the documents show.

But the planning application was withdrawn on Friday, according to the council’s website. Almost all of the comments on the plan were in objection to the relocation.

Feminist activist Caroline Criado Perez, who was one of those who rallied against the plan after being alerted to it by suffrage historian Elizabeth Crawford, said campaigners should be proud.

She wrote on Twitter: “Next step is to get the Emmeline Pankhurst statue listing upgraded to grade-II* with its significance specifically connected to its location.”

She said that would involve getting Culture Secretary Jeremy Wright and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport to approve it and “save Emmeline for future generations.”

Ms Crawford wrote: “Many thanks to everybody who took the trouble to negotiate the @CityWestminster planning site and make such perspicacious and heartfelt objections to the removal and resiting of Mrs Pankhurst’s statue.”

Earlier this month Labour’s shadow Commons leader Valerie Vaz urged all 650 MPs to object to the plan to move the statue.

She said: “It’s right the memorial should overlook Parliament.”