VICTORY was today being celebrated in a campaign led from York and Selby to provide a national memorial to the women of the Second World War.

The National Heritage Memorial Fund has awarded almost £1 million to the scheme to build the memorial, near the Cenotaph in Whitehall.

Supporters had previously been delighted after raising more than £200,000 and winning planning permission for the tribute.

But a shadow was cast over that achievement when it emerged that massive strengthening work would be needed underneath the heavy bronze sculpture to prevent the possibility of it sinking and crashing through on to Tube lines beneath.

Now the award of the additional £934,115 will fund that crucial work and allow the scheme to finally go ahead.

The drive for a memorial was begun six years ago by former army gunner Mildred Veal, of Clifton, York, and ATS servicewoman Edna Storr, of Selby, and was backed by an Evening Press campaign.

Major David Robertson, of Imphal Barracks in York, became chairman of the memorial charity, enlisting the help of York MP Hugh Bayley and Selby MP John Grogan to take it all the way to Westminster.

The campaign also received high profile backing from the Princess Royal, forces sweetheart Dame Vera Lynn and former Commons Speaker Betty Boothroyd.

Mrs Storr, 80, of Cedar Crescent, Selby, said: "We have been campaigning for the recognition of what we did, to have the contribution millions of us played remembered. Thanks to this our memorial will be there in Whitehall by the Cenotaph which is just what we always wanted, and I'm absolutely delighted."

Major Robertson said: "There were nearly as many women as men involved in critical jobs like munitions factories, the air force, and the land army, and without whom we would have lost the war.

"We want to give full recognition to the amazing role those women played."

Mr Bayley said: "This memorial, on Parliament's doorstep, will remind future generations of the essential role that women, like my mother and my constituents, played in protecting our democratic way of life."

Mr Grogan said: "These women's contribution was of a huge national and historic significance, and we wanted that recognised.

"Winston Churchill declared: 'Let the women of Britain come forward,' and they did, and made a huge difference to the future of our nation which must be remembered."

Now with the final funding in place, the bronze memorial, measuring 22ft high, 16ft long and 6ft wide, representing the uniforms and working clothes worn by women during the war, will be erected in June next year.

It will commemorate 640,000 women who served in the armed forces, and seven million in the Land Army, munitions factories, fire brigades and other wartime occupations. Canada, Australia and the United States of America have national memorials to their women of the Second World War, but this will be the first in Britain.

Updated: 10:37 Wednesday, April 28, 2004