Details of £5 million fund to repair, protect, and conserve First World War memorials revealed
2 Jul 2014 11:13 AM
War Memorials Trust to
receive £3 million to boost funding for grants and national network of
volunteers to be created to ensure memorials protected for the
future
Details of a £5 million
fund to conserve and protect war memorials were revealed by Prime Minister
David Cameron and Culture Secretary Sajid Javid.
The fund, originally announced
by the Prime Minister at the end of last year, will support a range of
different projects including:
- Up to £3 million for the
War Memorials Trust over the four year period of the First World War Centenary
to boost support for their grant schemes and expand their team of specialist
Conservation Officers to deliver this funding.
- Imperial War Museums will
receive half a million pounds to develop a website to help communities find out
where information about war memorials can be found. This ‘one stop
shop’ will be delivered by 4 August this year. By 2018 the site will have
developed substantially, to create an authoritative, fully-searchable, and free
to access, national register of all recorded First World War memorials in the
UK. This will allow people to search by name to find out where their relatives
may be commemorated.
- English Heritage will receive
half a million pounds to provide better protection for war memorials by
tripling the number of listed war memorials; and to deliver a larger pool of
skilled and trained specialists to repair memorials. They will also develop an
education toolkit for schools to allow pupils to research their local
memorials.
- Civic Voice will be given half a
million pounds to create a national network of volunteers over the four year
centenary period to help build skills to assess the condition of war memorials
and encourage their conservation.
- Proposals to use the remaining
half a million pounds to care for First World War graves outside the remit of
the Commonwealth War Graves Commission are being looked at.
Prime Minister David Cameron
said:
As we reflect on the events that
saw so many people make the ultimate sacrifice, I believe it is vital that we
ensure our memorials are fitting tributes to the fallen. This £5 million
will help ensure that local communities can access the funds they need to
repair, protect and conserve war memorials across the country, so that they can
remain places of respect for future generations and help people to better
understand what happened a century ago.
Culture Secretary Sajid Javid
said:
Our war memorials deserve to be
treated with the same respect as those they commemorate. This £5 million
fund will help conserve and protect our war memorials for the long term as well
as ensuring there are skilled volunteers available to repair and preserve them
in the proper way, so that those who paid the ultimate sacrifice a hundred
years ago will still be remembered with pride in their communities for years to
come.