YORK'S Memorial Gardens are to undergo a major refurbishment under the city's first Business Pride initiative.

The project is set to involve opening up views across the river to the Museum Gardens, cutting shrubs back, re-paving paths and tidying existing planting.

New ground cover shrubs will also be planted, using £2,000 in sponsorship from Hunters Estate Agents under the York Business Pride project.

Steps will also be taken in a bid to ensure people using the gardens are "respectful" in their behaviour. The work will be carried out by volunteers on the PACY project - a partnership between York Arc Light Project, City of York Council and York Association for the Care and Reform of Offenders - which uses community-based work to rehabilitate ex-offenders, reforming or former addicts and the homeless.

News of the project comes just a day before the gardens near York Station form the centrepiece of York's Remembrance Sunday parade.

The revamp is the brainchild of Councillor Sue Galloway, who says she was particularly concerned about the impression created by the gardens for visitors arriving in York by coach or train.

She said there weren't enough seats for visitors, and also for residents who wanted to sit down and enjoy the gardens or to remember those killed in wars. There was also a shortage of bins, and the flowers beds looked a "bit tired."

She said people would be encouraged to sponsor memorial seats in the gardens in memory of loved ones.

David Finnegan, director of the council's Commercial Services, which is designing the scheme and providing technical advice, said the work should improve and preserve an important resource for future generations of residents and tourists alike.

He hoped this would be the first of many initiatives under Business Pride, which was unveiled earlier this week and is part of the York Pride project aiming to improve the city environment at street level.

Work on the gardens is expected to start on Tuesday, November 25.

CCTV vigil to warn off skaters

A YORK memorial to thousands of railwaymen who died for their country is set to be protected from skateboarding youngsters by CCTV cameras.

The Evening Press reported last month how skateboarders were scratching, marking and chipping the delicate stonework on the Grade II listed memorial in Station Rise.

The British Railways Board, responsible for the memorial, said it was concerned that even more serious damage might be caused. It said it was examining ways of tackling the problem, but was keen to avoid fencing the area off.

Now it has held a meeting with war veterans, City of York Council, English Heritage and police to discuss the best solution.

Estate surveyor Greg Beecroft said police had suggested fencing might be the best option, but English Heritage had been very opposed to the idea.

It had been decided that the best way forward would be to install a CCTV camera to put the memorial under surveillance.

Signs will also go up warning skateboarders to keep off the memorial, which was extensively renovated in 1999.

Meanwhile, the memorial has been undergoing an annual clean-up and tidying operation, before a Remembrance ceremony to be held next Tuesday, at the 11th hour of the 11th day in November.

The plans to protect the memorial, and also the separate scheme to refurbish the nearby Memorial Gardens, were welcomed by Ted Griffiths, president of the York branch of the Royal British Legion.

"We must keep remembering those that made the supreme sacrifice," he said.

Updated: 09:28 Saturday, November 08, 2003