Victoria Gardens Westminster named on Europa Nostra's heritage endangered shortlist
The Victoria Tower Gardens public park in Westminster has been shortlisted as one of Europe’s most endangered heritage sites over government plans to build a Holocaust memorial and learning centre there, according to the Museums Association.
Europa Nostra, a heritage network that covers more than 40 countries in Europe, this week announced the 14 monuments and heritage sites shortlisted for the 2025 edition of its 7 Most Endangered Programme, which advocates for the safeguarding of Europe’s threatened heritage.
Europa Nostra said the planned £139m Holocaust memorial development would cover 27% of the park’s recreational space, and “irreversibly transform the character and uses of Victoria Tower Gardens’ civic space, as well as decrease the resilience of the park and its trees to changes in the climate and rainfall levels”.
The park, which sits alongside the Houses of Parliament, already features three listed memorials: the Buxton Memorial Fountain to parliamentarians who achieved the abolition of slavery; Auguste Rodin’s Burghers of Calais; and the Pankhurst Memorial celebrating the campaign for female suffrage. The park also has a temporary parliamentary education centre and a children’s play area.
Europa Nostra said: “Victoria Tower Gardens is severely threatened by the proposed construction of a UK national Holocaust memorial and affiliated learning centre, which would dominate the whole southern half of the gardens. Tall metal and concrete fins representing the proposed memorial would span the width of the gardens.
“The design involves introducing hard and soft landscaping around a new mounded landform above the semi-underground learning centre, to be located directly in front of the Buxton Memorial. The complex would cut off the children’s play area from the rest of the park and would make casual visits impossible.”
A statement from Europa Nostra’s advisory panel added: “The Palace of Westminster is recognisable globally – a symbol of a nation’s ‘governance by the people, for the people’. A World Heritage Site, its architecture expresses democratic accountability. Victoria Tower Gardens provides its essential setting, but it’s also a place in its own right – a breathing space. Space is not a development site to be filled; it has value.
“The proposal for a Holocaust memorial in London is understandable, but the location and scale escalate it from being an object IN a garden to being the object OF the garden, suffocating the space. The inclusion of Victoria Tower Gardens in the 7 Most Endangered Programme 2025 is a call for holistic empathy.”
First announced in 2016 by the Conservative government under David Cameron, the Holocaust memorial project has been delayed by legal challenges from a coalition of opposing groups, who say it does not comply with legislation prohibiting the gardens to be used as anything other than a civic space open to the public.
However, there is strong cross-party support for the project in parliament. Following the general election last year, the new Labour government reintroduced a bill to remove restrictions on building the memorial in the park, which is likely to receive Royal Assent this year.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has said of the plans: “The Victoria Tower Gardens site would position the memorial next to the Houses of Parliament, serving not only as a powerful tribute to the victims of the Holocaust but as a reminder of the importance of democracy and the dangers of allowing hate and intolerance to prevail.”
The memorial building was designed by British-Ghanian architect David Adjaye, who has since stepped back from the project. The development is now being led by Adjaye Associates and the British-Israeli architect Ron Arad.
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