THE Daily Echo today launches a cash collection appeal to help build new war memorial walls in Southampton.
Collection tins have been installed at all our offices alongside other collection points around the city.
It comes as the Southampton branch of the Royal British Legion is gearing up to carry out street collections on Armed Forces Day this Saturday.
Individuals and companies have already been making donations on a daily basis to the Southampton and Fareham Chamber of Commerce, which is spearheading the appeal.
Residents are being urged to donate £1 each.
The two walls of remembrance would be built alongside the city’s Cenotaph in Watt’s Park to honour all the city’s war dead by name.
Southampton City Council has already pledged £50,000 to the project, leaving at least £70,000 to be raised by businesses and the public.
Veterans and relatives of those who made the ultimate sacrifice for their county have been queuing up to back the appeal.
Council chiefs came up with the proposal as a way for safeguarding the names of the 2,000 First World War heroes on the 1920 monument, which are in danger of fading, and honouring all those who died in subsequent conflicts.
They decided they could not afford the £300,000 to fully restore the Cenotaph, although would continue to maintain it.
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