This article will make your blood boil

[Ian Walker]

I cant believe that people can even consider doing this.
I think we should bombard the local council and the company who want to use it with our fellings about this.

Tower Hill's memorial gardens for sailors lost at sea are a 'totally inappropriate place' for bankers to party in, says Labour MP Jim Fitzpatrick, above. Photograph: Flying Colours/Getty Images
The memorial gardens for the thousands of merchant seamen who died in two world wars and the Falklands conflict are to become the venue for City bankers' Christmas parties.

Event organisers are planning to erect a giant marquee on the lawn around the monuments in London's Tower Hill and festoon the park's trees with Christmas lights. The move has infuriated Trinity House, the organisation dedicated to mariners, and Labour MPs, but Tower Hamlets council has rejected all complaints. Council officers said protests that it should not allow parties among the memorials to 35,000 men lost at sea were not "valid representations" under the terms of the Licensing Act 2003.

The council owns the land, and will be able to charge the party organisers for its use. Moving Venue, a firm that specialises in arranging banquets in "unique and prestigious" locations around the capital, says that it wants to hold parties from 22 November to 17 December. It plans to sell alcohol from 11am until after midnight. It also wants a licence for live music. The firm also hopes to use the park during the 2012 Olympics.

The parties and banquets will take place in Trinity Square Gardens. On one side stands a pavilion by Sir Edwin Lutyens dedicated to the men who died in the first world war. Architects designed a sunken garden to fit behind it after 1945, to record the names of the merchant seamen who died in the Atlantic and Arctic convoys of the second world war. On the other side of the grass, is a memorial to the sailors who were killed in the Falklands.

Richard Beggs, of Moving Venue, told the Observer that the dinners would not disturb the dignity of the gardens. He claimed that Trinity House approved of the plans but Graham Hockley, secretary to the Corporation of Trinity House, said the mariners were appalled.

In a statement of its objections Trinity House said converting the park into "a site of entertainment would impact on the dignity of the memorials and the respect due those that are remembered there".

Jim Fitzpatrick, the Labour MP for Poplar and Limehouse, which covers Tower Hill, said that however badly a council needed money it should not allow the "cheapening" of a national memorial.

He said: "Any company sensitive about its commercial reputation would not touch this scheme. This is a totally inappropriate place for people to get drunk and party in. If the company cannot see sense, then the council should withdraw permission to proceed at once."

[Ivan Cloherty]

Dance on a grave, most were lost at sea, Bankers aka W*nkers.

What next rave at the grave of the tomb of the unknown warrior, party at the cenotaph, boogie down at Buck House as the Queen stays at Windsor, how about music and foam at parliament itself during recess times?

SICK:

No more support for this Government please, no one actually voted in the Con / dems, but can Condemn them.

LINK: Fury at City bankers' plan to hold Christmas parties in war memorial park | UK news | The Observer

K.

Keith I can understand your anger as we are all angered by this "reported" intention of a party, but where does the Government come into the equation as Tower Hamlets is a Labour run Council and it is they who issue the Licences and have the power to refuse such licences

Just wondering why you are accusing the Govt, I have no political axe to grind, just want the logic explaining on your statement highlighted above

Regards

Ivan

[Keith at Tregenna]

Yes the underlying point is not politics – it’s respect for the people who died to keep this country free.

LINK: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...business-greed

Please excuse my deletions as am on vacation and cannot give 100 percent:

K.

[Chris Allman]

I think that we should not let this cause trouble amongst ourselves.

We must try and find a way to bring pressure on both the Tower Hamlets and the firm ' Moving Venue '. This proposal is an absolute disgrace and should be stopped immediately. Both the Council and the Firm should be shamed nationally and a campaign should be started to do just that as soon as possible.

Would dancing be allowed on the tomb of the Unknown Soldier or at the Cenotaph, I think not, so why should it be allowed at Tower Hill, why should the MN's courageous dead be disgraced in such a way.

Chris.

[DeepSea]

The MNA is lodging an objection, as are Trinity House, Commonwealth War Graves Commission, The Honourable Company of Master Mariners & others including local residents.

If you feel strongly enough about this matter you may add your individual voices to the objection but please be DIPLOMATIC.

Contact us

complaints@towerhamlets.gov.uk

[Chris Allman]

I have E mailed the owner of the Firm ' Moving Venue ' as follows :-

Richard Beggs,

I have just seen the article in the press regarding the fact that you intend to organise parties etc at Tower Hill in November & December. Have you any idea of the sorrow, and anger this is going to cause the relatives of those Merchant Navy sailors lost in the Wars and whose names appear on the Tower Hill Stones. Very many of those men and women have no graves and Tower Hill is their memorial. It is a place of remembrance of all those very brave sailors who through their deaths kept our nation alive through the wars.

What you are about to do is unbelievable, unthinkable and totally disrespectful to those who died in the service of their country. Please reconsider what you are doing. I am a member of various Merchant Navy organisations having been in the MN myself and you will make untold enemies with your actions, not only amongst them but amongst the public at large.

Please reconsider your plans.

Chris Allman.



for those of you who may wish to do the same the E mail address of the Company is

info@movingvenue.com

Go on lets let him know our feelings on this in no uncertain terms.

Chris.

[Red Lead Ted]

My email has been sent with much stronger language. Hope all is well in your world Ian we must have that beer next time you up here m8 Terry.

[Mel Spence]

Given that most of our major banks are in fact nationalised at the moment, it would be entirely in order to write to both the PM's Office and the Business Secretary asking them to instruct the various boards to have nothing to do with this venture.

These days I drive projects instead of ships, and have some experience of the banking industry. I am afraid that if this idiocy goes ahead we will see pictures of quite inappropriate behaviour at these "events"

Regards

Mel

[Red Lead Ted]

Given that most of our major banks are in fact nationalised at the moment, it would be entirely in order to write to both the PM's Office and the Business Secretary asking them to instruct the various boards to have nothing to do with this venture.

These days I drive projects instead of ships, and have some experience of the banking industry. I am afraid that if this idiocy goes ahead we will see pictures of quite inappropriate behaviour at these "events"

Regards

Mel

Well said Mel would they use BLENHIEM PALACE?

[Captain Kong]

I have sent off my responce to the town council with copies to the Prime Minister , Home Secretary, Daily Mail.
Cheers
Brian.
.
.quote below....................
.
.Dear Prime Minister.

Here is a copy of a letter I have sent to Tower Hamlets Council who are about to desecrate the Tower Hill Merchant Navy War Memorial.

Please can you use your influence to stop the despicable desecration of our war dead who gave their lives and have no known grave.
see copy......

.To Tower Hamlets.
regarding
Richard Beggs, of Moving Venue,To Tower Hamlets Council.
I have been informed of this company with collusion from your Council to desecrate the Memorial for 35,000 dead Merchant Navy men and women who were killed and have no known graves in two World Wars and the Falklands War, to give you the freedoms you have today.
I have heard that Richard Begg of Moving Venue has your permission to desecrate the Memorial Park at Tower Hill for bankers and hooray Henrys to get drunk, dance and possibly urinate on OUR HALLOWED GROUND. If this is correct it is a disgusting and despicable act .
I have been in war zones in the Merchant Navy and have many friends and shipmates who were killed in Service of this once great Nation. Their names are on the Memorial plaques, where their families go to to pay their respects.
Please stop this wanton act of Desecration.

Would you allow this to happen on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier? or alongside the Memorial in Whitehall?
Copies to the Prime Minister, Home Secretary and the Newspapers.
Yours sincerely
Brian Aspinall



Thank you for your kind attention to this very serious matter.

Yours sincerely.

Brian Aspinall