The Government wishes to build the UK Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre within a historic public park, Victoria Tower Gardens. LPG has been challenging this project since 2016 through planning procedures and in the courts, yet successive Governments are persisting with these plans.
The designs by Sir David Adjaye and Ron Arad presented to Westminster City Council and subsequently considered at a planning inquiry will:
- take up at least 20.7% of the surface area of the park’s amenity green space – see plans for before and after;
- cut the roots of historic London Plane Trees;
- diminish the playground and push it closer to a main road; and
- reduce the ability for the park to act as a mitigation for climate change including sudden surface water absorption.
LPG took the Government to court and won, quashing the illegal planning approval. However, the Government is now pushing a Bill through parliament to remove the legal protections that have safeguarded this project.
We publish correspondence and keep a Record of Events if you want to find out more; see the latest about the Bill being proposed for Parliament or see the Court Judgments on the successive cases we have taken to defend this historic park. We regularly update our Campaign donors through our Crowdjustice page.
How you can help?
Donate
We welcome donations to help us continue challenging this project and supporting our other work.
We thank all those who have contributed to our campaign so far. Your funding has enabled our legal challenges with the generous support of Richard Buxton Environmental Solicitors and their team of barristers including Meyric Lewis, John Howell QC and Richard Drabble QC.
Throughout the campaign, we have worked with other campaign groups, including Save Victoria Tower Gardens and the Thorney Island Society, as well as individuals including Baroness Ruth Deech.
Take Action
The Charity has also sought on several occasions for the park and the Buxton Memorial to be declared Heritage At Risk by Historic England. So far that request has been dismissed as premature. The Charity disagrees as a planning permission was only quashed by going to the High Court. Write to Historic England asking for the park to be declared Heritage At Risk until such time as the project is withdrawn: londonseast@HistoricEngland.org.uk
Write to your MP asking for them to stop the Holocaust Memorial Bill from passing through parliament in order to defend Victoria Tower Gardens and lobby members of the House of Lords.
The Park
Victoria Tower Gardens, in central London, runs immediately along the Thames and provides the setting for the World Heritage Site around Westminster and the Houses of Parliament. It is a Grade 2 listed Park and contains numerous historically significant monuments including the Buxton Memorial, listed Grade 2* in its own right. The Charity prepared a Statement of Significance about the site to elaborate on the Inventory entry as part of the evidence it has used to demonstrate the destructive nature of the Government’s proposals.
Investigating Victoria Tower Gardens: Historian and former House of Commons Clerk Dr Dorian Gerhold describes how a deep-dive into the history of Victoria Tower Gardens may have preserved it for the future.
