LONG overdue cleaning and restoration of the St Albans War Memorial is due to get underway this month.

It follows a campaign started in 2011 to get the district council to spruce up the Grade II Listed memorial at the top end of St Peter’s Street.

The campaign was started by Ashley Wade who had been angered and upset when visiting the memorial to pay his respects to his great grandfather to see that his name had faded.

The work is scheduled to take 12 weeks and will see the memorial re-pointed and the World War II panels removed for the names of members of the armed forces who died to be re-incised.

The memorial will be temporarily fenced off for safety reasons while the work is carried out but the memorial gardens will remain open to the public as normal. Traffic is not expected to be affected by the project.

Cllr Beric Read, St Albans council’s portfolio holder for community engagement and localism, said: “The council has put in place a full restoration and ongoing maintenance programme for war memorials in its care.

“We consulted a conservation expert. Cleaning and conservation work will now be carried out in line with this advice to the war memorial in St Peter’s Street.”

Restoration work will also take place later in the year on the war memorials at 52 Holywell Hill, the entrance to Ridgmont Plaza car park in Ridgmont Road, and two other listed memorials at 15 High Street and 40 Verulam Road.