THE final design for a permanent memorial to Diana, Princess of Wales, was revealed yesterday. It is a £3 million moat the size of a football pitch, with turbulent and tranquil water intended to symbolise aspects of her life.

The finished idea for Hyde Park is to be submitted to Westminster City Council for planning permission next week after a five-year saga of bickering and bungles. Its passage through the planning process could yet be more turbulent than tranquil.

Objections are already being prepared against the oval “moat-without-castle” intended for the south side of the Serpentine, near the Lido. The plans, released by the Royal Parks, show cascading white water on one side and effervescent ripples on the other. Both flow into a tranquil pool.

The memorial, measuring 50 metres by 80 metres, reflects the turmoil in the Princess’s life, according to Kathryn Gustafson, the American who designed it. The tumbling water represents the Princess’s tumultuous moments and the still water her happy times.

The moat is also designed to reflect the Princess’s touchy-feely approach: children will be able to paddle, dogs to splash about and adults to cool their feet in summer.

The design has been lambasted as conceptually banal and out of keeping with the park. Mike Daley, a sculptor and director of Artwatch UK, said: “It’s nonsense, just the dampest of squibs. To talk about it representing the turmoil in the Princess’s life is just garbage and psychobabble.

“The size seems to be the proof of failure. If you need something as big as a football pitch to make a modest statement then you have thin and stretched mental resources. A memorial should be crisp and punchy and to the point, not all over the place. Spreading yourself all over a football pitch is the least impressive way to go about it.”

The Princess’s mother, Frances Shand Kydd, has said that the design lacks grandeur, while the actress Joanna Lumley is lobbying for a tree-lined bridge across the Thames as an alternative. Other critics say that the moat will collect leaves and debris.

The artist Tracey Emin welcomed the moat design but said that the money should be put to better use. “I think the fountain is a good idea — there should be more water features in London. They are soothing and relaxing for people,” she said.

“But I think Diana would have preferred the money to go to Aids charities. When you are dead you are dead. A memorial is pointless in a way. The money should help the living to live.”

Rosa Monckton, a friend of the Princess and chairwoman of the Diana Memorial Committee, said: “I think it is very symbolic of Diana. It is an embracing circle. There is nothing masculine about it and Diana was very feminine. People can paddle their feet and listen to the rushing water. I think it’s absolutely perfect.”

Work would begin next year for completion by the summer of 2004. The Government chose Gustafson’s design over a dome of water proposed by the British artist Anish Kapoor after months of wrangling. The project hit more delays when it was found that the design apparently breached committee guidelines.

One critic has already told The Times that he plans to write to the council to oppose planning permission. Ivor Hall, an architect who submitted his own design for the memorial, said: “The requirements said it should be modest in scale. Gustafson’s design is much too large. It’s colossal. It’s not in keeping with Hyde Park. I think it’s an extraordinarily ordinary design. It will be a scar on the park.”

Gustafson, who worked on the project with the British architect Neil Porter, said the fresh plans had been refined rather than radically changed. “What has been refined is more the shape of it. How the water flows, the exact situation, its position among trees.”

Gustafson said that she had designed a contemporary fountain for a contemporary princess. “It’s very accessible. You can touch it as she touched many people. People can go to the fountain to remember her or to think about their own lives,” she said.

“It’s an environment that you can walk into, be part of. The fountain also reflects parts of the Princess’s life. On one side the water bubbles and effervesces down a gentle slope; on the other it tumbles down, cascades, then rocks and rolls from side to side in a joyous way, before turning over on itself — perhaps representing the turmoil in her life.

“Both sides finally flow into a tranquil, peaceful, calm pool.”

• The body of a baby was buried within the grounds of Kensington Palace after her parents were granted permission by Diana, Princess of Wales.

  The Princess had suggested a burial within a walled garden to Rosa Monckton and her husband, Dominic Lawson, the Editor of The Sunday Telegraph, after their baby daughter was stillborn at six months in April 1994.

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