Statues are a time-honoured way of recognising people who have achieved great things, played a key role in history or made a major contribution to society.
They are not without controversy, as has been made clear in recent years. Someone regarded as a national hero in one century may be viewed very differently in another.
And there is always the question of whether casting someone’s likeness in stone is really the best way to honour them - perhaps using the money to fund a living legacy by supporting the cause which they stood for would be a more practical memorial.
But statues seem to remain a favourite way of celebrating figures we feel should not be forgotten.
Here are 11 potential candidates - both living and dead - who might be considered deserving of a statue.
1. Muriel Spark, author
Born Muriel Camberg in Edinburgh in 1918, Muriel Spark is most famous for her 1961 novel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Educated at James Gillespie's School for Girls, she then took a course in "commercial correspondence and précis writing" at Heriot-Watt College. She taught English for a short time and then worked as a secretary in a department store. After three years of marriage to Sidney Oswald Spark in Southern Rhodesia - now Zimbabwe - she left him because of his violent outbursts and returned to the UK in 1940. Her first novel, The Comforters, in 1957 won critical acclaim and was followed by a string of novels and short stories. She lived in New York for a while, then Rome before settling in Tuscany, where she died in 2006. | Evening Standard/Getty
2. Sophia Jex-Blake, Scotland's first female doctor
Born and brought up in England, Sophia Louisa Jex-Blake became the first practising female doctor in Scotland. She was famous as one of the Edinburgh Seven - the first group of matriculated undergraduate female students at any British university. They started studying medicine at Edinburgh University in 1869, but the Court of Session ruled that they should never have been admitted. In 1878 she set up at Manor Place in the New Town as the city's first woman doctor. She also established a clinic for poor patients and later founded the Edinburgh School of Medicine for Women. She died in 1912. | supplied
3. JK Rowling, author
Born in Gloucestershire in 1965, JK Rowling moved to Edinburgh in 1993 with her young daughter after a short marriage in which she had suffered domestic abuse. She had already drafted her first Harry Potter book and completed the novel before embarking on a teacher training course at Moray House and then teaching at Leith Academy. Harry Potter quickly became a global sensation, more and more books followed. Rowling married doctor Neil Murray in 2001. She later branched out into adult fiction. She is now Britain's best-selling living author. | Tolga Akmen / AFP
4. Marie Stopes, birth control pioneer
Marie Stopes - a campaigner for women's rights, who founded the first birth control clinic in Britain - was born in Edinburgh in 1880. Although the family soon moved to London, she was back in Edinburgh at the age of 12 and went to St George's School for Girls. She had a stellar scientific career in botany and geology. After her first marriage ended, he wrote a book Married Love about how she thought marriage should work. And with her second husband she set up a free birth control for poor mothers in London. She built up a network of clinics across the UK before her death in 1958. Marie Stopes International now operates in 27 countries worldwide. | supplied