Communities secretary pledges extra £25m for London Holocaust memorial centre

Communities Secretary James Brokenshire has pledged an additional £25m in funding for the London Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre planned for Victoria Tower Gardens.

The extra money will be matched by Lord Andrew Feldman and Gerald Ronson’s newly established independent charity, rounding up the total funding to £100m.

“I am delighted to announce a further commitment by the government of up to a further £25m to the project to ensure that our ambitions to provide that enduring legacy to those who lost their lives are fulfilled for generations to come,” Brokenshire said on Tuesday evening.

The additional funding will go towards the costs of building a revised entrance pavilion, the memorial courtyard and surrounding landscaping.

Brokenshire told Jewish News the decision to allocate extra funding to the project was not linked to objections raised during the planning application.

Heritage groups, including Historic England, Royal Parks and an adviser to Unesco’s World Heritage Committee, raised concerns about the location of the site.

“It’s actually how the project and the programme itself has evolved,” he said.

“It’s about the investment into the work within the education centre, so how we ensure that it best and effectively displays and explains the story of the Holocaust.

“Equally, some of the focus will be on the park and I suppose the overall integrity of the site and ensuring that is well maintained and well structured.”

Brokenshire made the announcement at an event hosted by the Wiener Library on May 7 where the late Joan Stiebel MBE and Lady Rose L. Henriques CBE received posthumous British Heroes of the Holocaust medals for their services to Britain.

Holocaust Educational Trust chief executive Karen Pollock said: “I want to thank the Secretary of State in particular for his brilliant support for the national memorial and learning centre and for all the support he has given to Holocaust education and remembrance and of course for the very welcome announcement he made today.”

Speaking at the event, Chief rabbi Ephraim Mirvis said: “We greatly appreciate the announcement that you Secretary of State made today.”