A Charlie Chaplin statue, a monument to a wicket inventor or a fountain – these are just a few of the quirky ideas to bring art to Coulsdon town centre.

The Coulsdon Forum and Millennium Group is hoping to secure a grant for creative ideas and wants the community to help.

Artists and residents are being invited to make their suggestions on the pieces, which must be related to the history of Coulsdon and could be placed in Chipstead Valley Road and Brighton Road.

Pauline Payne, chair of the Millennium Group, said: "For a long time we felt we lost the town centre (before the bypass was built) because it was consumed by traffic. Cars seemed to clog up Coulsdon.

"Now we want to get the whole community involved, people young and old, to come up with ideas for art for Coulsdon.

"They can be murals, statues or paintings."

Mrs Payne, of Bradmore Way, Old Coulsdon, has come up with her own ideas but wants others, including young people, to suggest some.

The 62-year-old said: "We want to commemorate Coulsdon, there is a lot of history here and we want to establish a sense of place through art.

"Perhaps it could be an idea from someone who has just moved to Coulsdon. We will consider anything. In fact the more imaginative, the better."

Funding for the project has not yet been secured but Mrs Payne said she is confident the Millennium Group would be eligible for cash from a grant scheme and she will collect ideas until August.

These can be dropped off at Coulsdon Library in Brighton Road, Coulsdon and Bradmore Green Library in Bradmore Way, Old Coulsdon.

Then all the proposals will be sifted through and taken to Coulsdon Neighbourhood Partnership before one is picked.

Janet Stollery, of Old Coulsdon Residents' Association, said although she was behind the idea it would be pointless erecting a permanent piece of art before plans for the former Red Lion site, in Brighton Road, were finalised.

PAULINE Payne's suggestions for art in Coulsdon town centre:

A statue of Charlie Chaplin who used to visit his mum Hannah, when she was a patient in Cane Hill mental asylum, at the turn of the 20th century

A statue of Cuthred, the 7th century Saxon warrior, who first named Coulsdon as Cuthredsdune

A memorial to Coulsdon cricket player Edward Stevens, who invented the three stump and bail wicket in 1726

A fountain tapping into the Bourne river which flows beneath Coulsdon