London rejected it, the local police are concerned about it, and even a supporter said that it should be placed in the middle of a pond – but after a brisk debate on the local planning committee, a statue of Margaret Thatcher will soon be erected in her home town of Grantham.

Nearly 30 years since her departure from Downing Street, the Lincolnshire town of her birth agreed to honour its most famous daughter with the bronze sculpture, which was originally meant to stand in London’s Parliament Square.

The sculpture will be sited on a green in the middle of Grantham after an application was approved on Tuesday by councillors despite warnings from police that it could be “a target for politically-motivated vandals”.

The former Conservative prime minister will stand on a green midway between two existing statues, one of the 19th-century MP Frederick James Tollemache and another of Sir Isaac Newton, who went to school in town. In the face of recommendations by police that it be placed on a sufficiently high platform to make it difficult to damage the statue, the 10.5ft statue will stand on a plinth of the same height again.

Proposals to erect the £300,000 bronze sculpture – which was offered to Grantham last year after original plans for it to be erected in London were rejected – were approved by local councillors meeting a stone’s throw away from its planned location at a green on St Peter’s Hill.

One hope of those behind the plans to bring the Iron Lady – or at least the bronze one – to Grantham is that cash tills will rattle to the tune of money spent by visitors ranging from tourists to Thatcherite pilgrims who have long trickled into the market town where she grew up as daughter of a local grocer and mayor.

Even here, however, Britain’s first female prime minister continued to polarise opinion during a sometimes stormy meeting of South Kesteven district council’s planning committee.

“This is a statue that no one else wants,” said Ashley Baxter, an independent member who recalled aspects of her legacy ranging from the miners’ strike through to the poll tax.

He went on to remind colleagues that a rainbow flag was currently flying outside from council property, something which he said would have been unthinkable during the Thatcher era owing to her government’s support for regulations outlawing public institutions’ “promotion” of gay relationships.

At one point, Baxter asked Graham Jeal, one of the project’s co-ordinators, if consideration had not been given to placing the statue on a revolving platform, adding: “Or is the lady not for turning?” The question was ruled out by the chair for not being sufficiently serious.

Nevertheless, Baxter said he saw no reason to oppose the application, which was endorsed by the largely Conservative committee, although not before a Tory member, councillor Rosemary Kaberry-Brown, voiced her regret that it had not been possible to place the statue in the middle of a pond “to stop people climbing up and making a nuisance of themselves”.

The local Labour leader, Charmaine Morgan, admitted to being “torn” about the statue, given the money which visitors to the town would generate. Warning of how it could place a burden on police, she said that Thatcher “did little to help her fellow women” and that “she preferred the company of men”.

The case for the statue was pressed by the curator of Grantham museum, outside of which the statue will stand. David Burling noted that he and colleagues had a duty to educate, adding: “We don’t do this by telling an edited story.”

He urged people to consider the potential of the statue to generate investment, adding that the museum was in contact with coach trip organisers from all over the world and that visitors frequently ask why there was no statue.

The council received 25 letters about the statue – seven in support, 17 against and one that was categorised as neutral.

It is the work of sculptor Douglas Jennings, who depicted Thatcher in the Baronial Gown of Kesteven and wearing the chain of the Order of the Garter.

The application was made in the name of Grantham Community Heritage Association (GCHA), which runs the town’s museum. Funding has come from the Public Memorials Appeal, a charity that commissions memorials of historically important people, and from an appeal launched by the Heritage Association. No public funds have been used, according to the council.

For now, the statue is at the foundry where it was cast.

A council report prepared ahead of Tuesday’s meeting had included a recommendation from Lincolnshire police that it be placed on a sufficiently high plinth to ensure no-one can climb it and that it be subject to CCTV surveillance.

“In general there remains a motivated far-left movement across the UK (though not so much in Lincolnshire) who may be committed to public activism,” said the force.

“Margaret Thatcher does however maintain an element of emblematic significance to many on the left and the passage of time does seem to have diminished that intensity of feeling. However it still remains that there is a possibility any public statue of Baroness Thatcher would be a likely target for politically motivated vandals.”

The leader of South Kesteven district council, Conservative councillor Matthew Lee, said: “Whatever your views, the statue will undoubtedly attract more visitors to the town which can only be good news for Grantham’s local economy, bringing benefits and opportunities for residents and local businesses.”

The statue is now headed to Grantham following an icy, sometimes hostile, reception elsewhere. Westminster councillors last year rejected a proposal for the statue to be sited in Parliament Square in London amid fears it could attract “civil disobedience and vandalism”.

In 2002, a marble state of the former Conservative leader was decapitated by a man at the Guildhall Art Gallery in London.