A licence has been granted for a memorial garden to remember D-Day soldiers which left from Stokes Bay.

The licence allows the D-Day Fellowship, the organisation behind the project tasked with raising £30,000, to use Gosport Borough Council land near Stokes Bay Sailing Club, to open the D-Day memorial garden.

The semi-circular garden, next to the promenade, will offer a place for reflection and remembrance for local residents and visitors. It will be the site of a new granite D-Day memorial stone and the existing Mulberry Harbours stone, a Gosport Borough Council report said. 

The D-Day memorial garden, facing the sea, is part of the commemorations of the 80th anniversary of British and Allied troops leaving Stokes Bay as part of Operation Overlord to take part in the D-Day landings in Normandy, which took place in June.

Work by RHS Silver Gilt award-winning garden designers Helyers will start in December, said Councillor Zoe Huggins (Con, Alverstoke), who is also involved in the project.

According to plans, the memorial space is paved with limestone, within a semi-circle space of 10 metres by five metres. Enclosed by a bank planted with Photinia – otherwise known as Red Robin, a salt-tolerant coastal plant – surrounded by a grassy area.

There is also a flagpole which means the garden may be used to mark events such as Remembrance Sunday, D-Day, VE Day and VJ Day.

Jilly and David Salvat from the D-Day Fellowship said the group took over fundraising the project, which needed £30,000 from local businesses and the community when Gosport Borough Council stepped back from supporting the scheme in 2022/23. 

Gosport Borough and Hampshire County councils have provided £5,000 each to the project via community grants schemes. 

The council licence will last for 50 years with an agreed peppercorn rent of £1 per year.

Mr and Mrs Salvat said: “Thanks to Powder Monkey, Helyers, and Cllr Zoe Huggins for their time and efforts as part of the committee and in making this project real.”

Councillor Zoe Huggins (Con, Alverstoke) said: “The D-Day Memorial at Stokes Bay moves closer to reality – a testament to community dedication and a lasting legacy for all who served.”

The memorial’s achievement is bittersweet as the fellowship’s chairman Malcolm Chapman died in May and will not see his legacy completed, Mr and Mrs Salvat added. 

The Mulberry Harbours memorial stone which will be part of the garden commemorates the 60th anniversary of building the Phoenix caissons at Stokes Bay, dedicated by the Gosport Society. 

The Canadian Stone memorial on the rendered drawing, dedicated by the Canadian government, is close to Pebbles Café in Stokes Bay and will not be moved to the new garden. 

Members of Gosport Borough Council’s policy and organisation board on November 27 unanimously approved the licence.