"London is home to outstanding green spaces that I want
 to protect, invest in and improve as we aim to
 become the world’s first National Park City"  
 Mayor Sadiq Khan, August 2017

PRESS RELEASE, 1/10/24:

Lords suggest a new approach

After nine years of bitter dispute over the location of the UK Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre proposed

for Victoria Tower Gardens a compromise proposal is gathering high-profile support in the Palace of Westminster.

Read the full press release here


The Holocaust Memorial Bill 

The new Government's press release on July 18 confirmed their desire to press ahead with a Memorial and a Learning Centre in VTG as ‘a place for poignant reflection’.

The enabling bill, the Holocaust Memorial Bill, has advanced to the Lords, with its Second Reading on 4th September. This will be followed by the hearings of Petitions by people affected by the Bill to the Lords Select Committee. 

See here for the text of local residents’ Petition to the Lords, through The Thorney Island Society, focussed on constructive amendments to limit the project to a Memorial and to minimise the damage caused to VTG as a whole and in particular its playground.

Other Petitions on the Bill have come from our partner, London Historic Parks and Gardens Trust, as well as from 53 members of the House of Lords and others. These can all be found here.


SVTG’s Objectives

We continue to assert that the Memorial and Learning Centre project in its current form (as designed by Sir D Adjaye) in VTG would destroy VTG a valued open space, and to suggest alternative sites and approaches involving a separate Learning Centre. 

We also challenge the government’s misleading claims about the scale of the changes affecting VTG park users, which are refuted in the attached Plans A and B showing VTG respectively before and after the construction of the proposed Adjaye-designed HMLC, as follows:- 

  • We refute the Government’s claim that only 7.5% of the gardens would be lost. It is obvious from the plans below that much more than 7.5% of the gardens would become unusable as a public park
       We calculate that over one-fifth of the gardens would become unusable. This area amounts to 3,910 sq m, which        is 20.7% of the total area of VTG

  • Contrary to government claims, the children’s playground would be reduced in size by almost one-third. We will be asking the Government to maintain the playground at its current size. This could involve leaving the Spicer Memorial where it is and redesigning the area around the entrance to the Memorial to accommodate it.

City parks are important, they must be preserved for everyone

   
There is no doubt that there is a need for Holocaust education, but the excellent Imperial War Museum Holocaust Galleries are less than a mile away with their amazing collection and outreach programme.

Victoria Tower Gardens is a park, it's not an appropriate site for a Holocaust education centre. It's the only park beside the Thames in central London. It is much used and loved by office workers, local residents and tourists. 
    

According to the 2017 London draft Environment Strategy – London parkland should be increasing, not decreasing. Every green space is a vital lung in our polluted city. The latest Enviromental Audit Comittee's report states that "local councils should plant trees and keep green spaces to provide cool air". Westminster City Council has committed to robustly protect and preserve existing green space. The present tranquil and restful atmosphere of Victoria Tower Gardens must be preserved for future generations. 

We believe that there are several other sites that would be more suitable for this project​. There has been a precedent recently in Amsterdam for relocating a proposed Holocaust Memorial.
    
   
The Government is intending to build a Holocaust Memorial in Victoria Tower Gardens.
We are concerned that this plan will change forever the use of a much loved and well-used local park into a sombre, security patrolled civic space.
    
In this film Landscape Architect Tom Turner shares his views on why Victoria Towers Gardens should be preserved and why it is the wrong place for a memorial.
"However good the design, Victoria Tower Gardens is the wrong place for London’s Second Holocaust Memorial".
"Parks quite simply make us happier"​
HRH The Duke of Cambridge. 

"The impact upon the adjacent mature trees needs to be taken into account. The roots of these trees, upon which their life depends, stretch across the open ground of Victoria Tower Gardens well beyond their canopy visible above ground... It is essential to accept that after a few years the trees beside the underground hall and sunk entrance courtyard are likely to be dead."
Hal Moggridge, OBE RIBA Landscape Architect.