Details of £5 million fund to repair, protect, and conserve First World War memorials revealed

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 today 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:

  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.”

Chair of Civic Voice, Dr Freddie Gick said

“This initiative demonstrates the importance we attach to remembering the contribution made by millions of men and women who gave their lives during the First World War. We are delighted that Civic Voice and the civic society movement will be playing a major role in helping to ensure that the country's war memorials are in a fitting condition to reflect the price paid by earlier generations. We are pleased to work with our partners English Heritage, War Memorials Trust, IWM and DCMS on this project”.

NOTES FOR EDITORS

Civic Voice is the national charity for the civic society movement. It set up in 2010 and is supported in Parliament by the APPG for Civic Societies.
 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:

DCMS Public Enquiries: 020 7211 6200
DCMS Out of hours telephone pager no: 07699 751153
Ian Harvey, Civic Voice (m) 07877 096968