A Planning Inspector has closed the public inquiry into the called-in application for a national memorial to the Holocaust, and an associated underground learning centre proposed to be located at Victoria Tower Gardens, next to the Houses of Parliament in Westminster. The inquiry was held on a virtual platform and was the longest and most complex inquiry that PINS has hosted remotely. The inquiry raises a range of difficult issues including how the terrible events of the Holocaust should be memorialised in the UK, and it attracted very considerable public interest and involvement, including appearance by two former Prime Ministers, the current and immediate past Archbishops of Canterbury, the Chief Rabbi and a range of former Cabinet ministers, academics and broadcasters. The Inspector will report in due course to the Minister of State who has been appointed to determine the application instead of the applicant Secretary of State.
 
Douglas Edwards QC and Charles Streeten were instructed and appeared for Westminster City Council, the local planning authority.

Meyric Lewis was instructed and appeared for the Rule 6 parties, Thorney Island Society/Save Victoria Tower Gardens and the London Gardens Trust.  (The London Gardens Trust were also the claimants in a judicial review of the decision making arrangements for the determination of the called-in application, [2020] EWHC 2580 (Admin) and have applied for permission to appeal)
 
Their closing submissions can be read here and here.