Funding agreed for Bomber Command Memorial dedication ceremony
Culture Secretary Maria Miller announces £600,000 package to close remaining funding gap.
Culture Secretary Maria Miller announces £600,000 package to close remaining funding gap.
Philanthropist John Caudwell has pledged £200,000, while DCMS is to contribute a further £400,000 to the cost of the Green Park memorial’s dedication ceremony, which took place in June this year.
Maria Miller said:
“The memorial to the heroes of Bomber Command in London’s Green Park is a solemn and beautiful tribute to the bravery of those who flew, and made the ultimate sacrifice, for us all during World War II.
“It is absolutely right that public funding be made available for this, and that we move decisively now to do so. I am extremely grateful to John Caudwell in his efforts to bring this matter to closure, and to all those people whose generosity in making donations, large and small, have helped us to get to this point. Those surviving veterans from that campaign can rest easy tonight knowing that their fund-raising efforts are complete, and that they will not have to dip into their own pockets to make up the shortfall.”
We announced a grant of £796,000 towards the creation of a permanent memorial to honour the 55,573 men of Bomber Command who lost their lives in World War II in February this year. A grant of £204,000 was also given to the project under the Government’s Memorials Grant Scheme, bringing total DCMS support for the project before today to £1 million. The majority of funding for the memorial came from donations from veterans and their families.