The proposed slavery memorial of a bronze statue with a budget of £4m in London’s Hyde Park has stalled (Letters, 6 December). Government funding has been refused for this design, little other funding is available and the planning permission has lapsed.
A more logical location than Hyde Park for such a memorial is the Canning Graving Docks outside the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool. The Canning Graving Docks were central to the slave trade, repairing and fettling hundreds of slave ships for their voyages of death, and misery for those who survived the journey and generations of their descendants.
The site is currently the subject of a “waterfront transformation project”, ideas for which are being sought, and the selected design consortium includes David Adjaye, the black British architect of the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington. There could be no more appropriate creator or overseer of a national slavery memorial in this location, which lies between Royal Albert Dock and the Three Graces, and which already has a government commitment of initial finance.
A memorial would not only commemorate those who suffered through the slavery that Prince Charles has called this “appalling atrocity” that stains our history, but should remind us of its contemporary consequences and help us to navigate a better future.
Roland Hill
Stockport, Greater Manchester
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