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.