War Memorials Trust
 

Your Local Planning Authority

It is often assumed that a local authority is responsible for war memorials in its areas but this is not the case. Some local authorities are custodians of war memorials but others are not directly responsible for any.

If the local authority is not directly responsible for the custodianship of any war memorials then enquiries about specific war memorials should be directed to the relevant custodian which may be a town or parish council or another organisation. The local authority will still be involved in war memorials when they relate to specific issues such as planning and will need to be consulted if, for example, a war memorial is listed, in a conservation area or a scheduled monument. The pages within this section direct you to potential good starting points if you are seeking to identify if a local authority has any role to play with a specific war memorial.

Our experience indicates that responsibility for war memorials can fall into different departments within a local authority, if they are responsible for any. Planning/Conservation may lead, alternatively war memorials may be dealt with by Asset Teams, Cemetery/Burial/Bereavement or Streets/Highways. Whoever manages these should be aware of any legal designations and the Trust would encourage all to follow best conservation practice when maintaining their war memorials.

If you are trying to find out if a local authority is responsible for a war memorial or if a war memorial is designated then we recommend contacting the Planning or Conservation department in the first instance as war memorials are part of the historic environment.

2010-2019 War Memorials Officer Programme 

In November 2010 War Memorials Trust approached local authorities across the UK to ask if they had a War Memorials Officer. A War Memorials Officer was seen as the single, or main, point of contact at the council who deals with war memorial issues. They are rarely called 'War Memorials Officer' within the local authority structure as war memorials are just one part of their job but War Memorials Trust used the phrase to identify the person who deals with war memorials.

Around half of the local authorities responded initially and War Memorials Trust had several pages on this website listing War Memorials Officers. However, as staff change and local authorities have re-structed it has become too administratively difficult to maintain this record accurately. As such with the end of the centenary of World War I War Memorials Trust reviewed this information and remove the listings for specific people but has retained details of the local authorities and their websites.

 

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