New Memorial

New Memorial to Remember All

Work continues behind the scenes to progress the idea of a new police memorial at the National Memorial Arboretum (NMA). This has proved to be a very time consuming project but we are pleased to advise you that various proposals are now under consideration and a target date of the second quarter of the year 2013 has been set for the unveiling of the memorial.

The project now falls under the remit of the Police Roll of Honour Trust (PROHT) which has established a separate committee to oversee "The Police Officers Memorial Project". The board is made up of representatives from various police related charities and is led by its director and honorary president Sir Hugh Orde who is also a COPS trustee. We are also pleased to have two more of our trustees on the board, our chairman Mick Foster QPM and our survivor representative Denis Gunn.

One of the key issues in the planning of the new memorial is the need to display the names of all 4,000 officers who have died whilst serving in any of the British police forces. Regrettably the police memorial on The Mall in London only holds the names of approximately 1,600 officers unlawfully killed in the execution of their duty or in the course of effecting an arrest or in the performance of acts of gallantry or other hazardous duty.

In recent months meetings have been held at the offices of the Police Mutual Assurance Society (PMAS), the offices of the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) and also at the National Memorial Arboretum. The NMA's chief executive Charles Bagot-Jewitt was very enthusiastic about the project and he and his colleagues are also helping to progress this matter. The memorial is expected to attain the highest status of "Iconic" and, as such, careful consideration needs to be given to the location in which it will be placed and further news on this matter will be made available at a later date.

A clear priority has to be the funding of the memorial and the project board is currently looking into employing a professional fund-raiser to secure the estimated £3 million required to build and maintain the memorial. In the meantime the team is also reviewing various proposed designs for the memorial and it is anticipated that a decision will be made in the very near future. We shall, of course, keep you posted as the project moves forward.