'Extraordinary' effort as £100k target for Royal Navy Coastal Forces Monument in Portsmouth smashed

Tens-of-thousands of pounds has been collected to build a monument to honour Royal Navy heroes in the Second World War.

The weekend fundraising campaign generating support for the Coastal Forces Monument was warmly received by the public. More than £100,000 was raised with 36 hours remaining, with the campaign at certain points accumulating £1,000 an hour.

Being built at the Elephant Boatyard on the River Hamble, the memorial honours the sacrifices of the men and women who served in the Coastal Forces and Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR). Monument project director Richard Farrington said the team were delighted and humbled to reach their goal, and had some great help from The News in publicising the project.

He said: “We’ve been given so many remarkable messages from people donating in honour of their loved ones who served. This monument belongs to those people. That’s a powerful message, and they backed this campaign.

“Some put in £5, others put in £5k, but that’s not the point. Those people were moved and inspired by what we were trying to do, and made a contribution. It’s phenomenal.”

Organised by the Coastal Forces Heritage Trust, the statue is due to be set up at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard by May 2027, free for the public to see. initial funding was acquired for the project to begin, wit further campaigns organised to generate the rest of the £250,000 total.

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The trust is running a gala dinner at Trinity House in London to drum-up further support from businesses and corporate donors. If it’s met with similar enthusiasm, the majority of the money will have been secured for the memorial. Celebrities including Andrew Marr, whose uncle Hamish was killed in the Second World War at Dunkirk aged 20, backed the project.

Commander Mark Dickens, great-great-grandson of world-renowned Portsmouth author Charles, also put his weight behind the initiative. The monument itself will feature two life-sized bronze figures poised on the bows of a motor gunboat, with a Women's Royal Naval Service (WRNS) signaller alongside them. It’ll stand at four metres tall and be complete with waves and friezes which tell the story of the coastal forces.

Mr Farrington said achieving this recent goal is a big step closer to the monument becoming a reality. He added: “It definitely struck a chord with people. We’re all struggling with the cost of living crisis, but they still found time and had some money in their pockets. We were a little nervous going into this. We thought we might struggle to reach the target, but the reaction was extraordinary. We had no idea how successful it was going to be.

“We’ve got all the money we planned to get from that fundraising activity. This is one of a number of the strands of the campaign. The public have responded in an overwhelmingly positive way, and there has been support for the concept, design, and everything else. We’re a big step closer and hugely grateful to everyone who contributed. A lot of legwork goes into a fundraising project like this, so we’ve got more to do, but we’ll keep at it.”

Further information, and instructions on how to make a donation, can be found on the Coastal Forces website.