Agenda item

Councillor Bruce asked Councillor Johnston the following question:

“TDC (Thanet District Council), I understand, has allocated £10.000 in its budget to meet costs of repairs to war memorials.  Please confirm that TDC spent its allocation in the last financial year, will spend its full allocation in this financial year and has made provision in the 2013/14 budget for the same sum.”

Councillor Johnston replied:

Under the War Memorials (Local Authorities’ Powers) Act 1923, councils do not have a duty to repair war memorials; there are Outside Bodies who own the memorials.  However, we do feel that we are the custodians. 

A budget allocation of £7,100 is made each year for the care of war memorials, and the same allocation is included for 2013/14.  However, this budget is not managed on a merely annual basis as this does not present the best way of caring for them.

The war memorials are not owned by the council, but we try and care for them on behalf of the community. 

The main maintenance work is undertaking cleaning of algal growth on the memorials, and providing a sacrificial ‘shelter coating’ on appropriate stone surfaces.  This work does not have to be done every year, but can be done from time to time.

Louise Dandy (our Conservation Area Appraisal Officer) tries to find match funding from other organisations and I tried with ‘106’ and the Charter Trustees. 

For this financial year, we can keep some monies from previous years to make up the amount that we need to do the work.  Officers inform me that, in addition, we also undertake more significant repairs as a result of vandalism.  At present, we are awaiting the specialist stone in relation to a significant repair to the Korean Memorial.  This has been delayed so the expenditure on this site will now occur in 2013/14.  The stone alone is costing £4,000 so the budget for 2012/13 is to be carried forward for this work.  The total sum of this work will be approaching £14,000 overall.

In relation to spending the £9,521 that was used in 2011/12, this did require an agreed transfer from contingencies to make up the shortfall.

We have to work very hard on this.  We feel we are custodians.  We do not have to repair them, but it is vital that we do.

Supplementary Question

Councillor Bruce then asked the following supplementary question:

“Given the growing number of resident groups and community groups taking on care of cemeteries and flower beds etc, I hope that the Cabinet Member would support such an initiative to help look after these cherished memorials to those who gave us the ultimate sacrifice.

Councillor Johnston’s reply was:

We did actually have such a working party and Councillor Brian Sullivan and I had similar meetings in the Mayor’s Parlour.  I absolutely support reviving that, as war memorials are a number of things; they can be a statue, a building, a monument, or any other edifice.  Even the Railway Station in Ramsgate has a plaque to the men who worked in the railway who died in the last war.  I would support that and I would be very happy to have your expertise on that committee and, perhaps, Councillor Sullivan might want to join again.