Bomber Command memorial gets go-ahead in Green Park

Published: 19 November, 2010
by JOSH LOEB

BACKERS of the controversial Bomber Command memorial in The Green Park are celebrating after plugging a £2million hole in their budget.

The fundraising success, which was announced this week, means the £3.5million monument to thousands of airmen who died in the war will go ahead. But campaig­ners who oppose the plans said they will carry out a “symbolic protest” on the site next week.

Juliet Lyle from Friends of The Green Park and the Green Party said the group would tie ribbons around trees – some more than 100 years old – which are earmarked to be cut down during construction of the memorial near to Hyde Park Corner.

She said: “There has   been such might and such strength behind these proposals and it has been so one-sided. They said we were being disrespectful to people who died in the war but  five or six of us had family who were in the Royal Air Force. My father flew Spitfires at the end of the Second World War. 

“We were not against the memorial, we just don’t want them to ruin the park.”

High-profile figures including David Cameron, Tory Lord Ashcroft and Bee Gees singer Robin Gibb lent their support to the memorial, which received planning approval from Westminster City Council in May and will replace more than 80 metres of “undulating meadow and woodland” with a huge neoclassical structure.

Sir Michael Beetham, president of the Bomber Command Association, said he was grateful to donors who had given generously to the project.

Doug Radcliffe, secretary of the association, said: “This will be splendid news to the members of the Bomber Command Association and to the surviving friends and family of those who died. The campaign to raise the funds which continues today has been extraordinary and often moving, with donations from all walks of life and from around the world.”      

Building work on the memorial is expected to begin in January. 

The designer is architect Liam O’Connor.