Following the 'Letter of the Day' written by Hon Alderman Alan Burnett of Sussex Road, Southsea, which can be read here. We felt it appropriate to make a statement on behalf of our twinning link with Caen.
Having spoken to the City Council about this I can confirm that several officers from Caen City Council's parks department and Portsmouth City Council have in the past, discussed the overall D Day museum transformation project.
At nearly 25 years old the original Caen-Portsmouth peace garden had become aged with the shrubs becoming undefined. The clarity around the dove and the map landscape were extremely hard to interpret.
We were of course extremely aware of the importance of this specific garden with the equivalent in Caen and we directly raised the issue of the challenges of maintaining the garden and our initial thoughts on how this could be re-interpreted and reflected with both Caen City Council representatives and officers from their parks service.
Within the context of this transformation we explained that we hoped to be able to look at the provision of a Caen-Portsmouth reference but within the overall landscape, adjacent to the Museum and not the other side of the road.
We had received feedback through the D-Day renovations process that there was a need for a place of peace and reflection and that it would be preferred to have this place within the same landscape area as the museum.
Caen City Council were extremely supportive of the overall idea of changing the existing peace garden and agreed that an appropriate reference to Caen and Portsmouth's links could be made within the new D-Day landscape as part of the transformation process.
As a result, an olive tree from Normandy is scheduled to be planted in the new D-Day Museum landscape, during the visit of M. Pascal Pimont to Portsmouth for the Mayor Making Ceremony in May 2018.
The committee hopes to have members present at this ceremony and to take photographs of the planting ceremony in order to add them to this news blog.
We will of course also add any further details of the Caen-Portsmouth peace garden within the new D-Day Story Museum area to this news blog as and when we get it.
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