Mayoral candidate outlines plans to move Mansfield's war memorial

The memorial currently stands behind Mansfield Council’s Civic Centre headquarters, off Rosemary Street.

However, the Conservatives have outlined a plan to relocate it into the town centre.

Coun Andre Camilleri, the Conservative’s mayoral candidate and Nottinghamshire Council member for Mansfield South, said: “We have always thought the memorial should be sited in the centre of our community where we believe it would become a focal point for our veterans, residents and visitors to visit and pay their respects.

“On Remembrance Day, the town could come together to honour our dead in a place many of the fallen would have known and loved.”

There are already plans under way for the council to leave the Civic Centre for a new ‘Mansfield Connect’ hub in the former Beales department store in Mansfield town centre.

Coun Camilleri said: “There are plans in the future to move the council from the Civic Centre, so it makes sense to move the memorial too.

“Our colleague Coun Stephen Garner put a motion to build a new memorial in the town before the council in 2015 and it was unanimously approved. Still, for some reason, it never got completed.”

Coun Camilleri has already pledged to abolish the role of mayor of Mansfield if he is elected when voters go to the polls on May 4.

Labour’s Andy Abrahams, the current mayor, is seeking re-election in May, while Coun Mick Barton, Mansfield Council member for Maun Valley and leader of the opposition, is standing as the Mansfield Independents’ candidate.