A TOTEM pole made by Crediton youngsters has been put up in Peoples Park.

Crediton Town Council was given planning permission to erect it in the far northeast corner near a picnic table earlier this year.

Members of Crediton Youth Service made the 1.5-metre pole out of individual clay rings in the summer of 2024.

“A totem pole, culturally, is a family story and each element represents one person's journey and one person's part of the family,” Crediton Town Council Lead Youth Worker Cath Kelly said.

“What the young people have done here is each element of the totem pole is their story of how they feel about their life in Crediton.

“Everyone contributed their own piece which represents what's important to them.”

The Crediton Heart Project raised funds for the creation of the totem pole and Crediton Arts Centre hosted the pottery workshops during which it was made.

When Mid Devon District Council gave the town council the green light to install it in Peoples Park, it said it would “be of a sympathetic design, not detracting from the natural surroundings and not prevent use of the open space for sports/ recreation”.

It added it would “not have a detrimental impact on the significance of the [Crediton] Conservation Area”, and that its height would be below fence lines and therefore not visible from neighbouring gardens.

The district council said the plans showed “a clear understanding of the characteristics of the site, its wider context and the surrounding area”, and that the pole would “have an acceptable impact on the landscape character and environmental amenity”.

“Additionally, the proposed development would not have an unacceptably adverse effect on the privacy and amenity of neighbouring properties,” the local authority said.

Peoples Park is also home to another totem pole, erected in 2016 in memory of Crediton Scout Samuel Crocker.