A war hero’s son has urged Highland Council to reconsider a planning application to avoid causing hurt and distress to families.
Bill Laing Harvey is calling for a rethink of proposals at Spean Bridge’s Commando memorial.
The A-listed monument is visited by around 150,000 people a year.
It is dedicated to troops who trained for covert operations in the surrounding Lochaber hills and glens during World War Two.
The council has approved plans to improve the space in the site’s memorial garden, where tributes can be left.
Mr Harvey said he and other family members are not against the improvements.
But he is warning that the new plans creep into an area where soldiers’ ashes have been spread for many years.
The 76-year-old is asking for urgent talks with the local authority before things progress any further.
Gunner William Harvey
Mr Harvey never met his father as he died in conflict just two months before his birth in 1945.
His father, gunner William Harvey, joined No4 Army Commando where he served at Lofoten, Boulogne, Dieppe, D-Day and then Flushing.
Gunner Harvey, alongside his best friend and best man at his wedding Alex ‘Mac’ MacAulay, progressed from Uncle Beach, Flushing to Nieuwstraat.
Mr Harvey, when pushing the enemy, is said to have pulled back his friend uttering the words: “I will go first”.
Gunner Harvey is noted as being killed by machine gun fire on November 1, 1944.
Improvements will be carried out ‘sympathetically’
Plans submitted by Highland Council were approved on Monday by the Lochaber area committee.
Councillor Alan Henderson said the extension to the memorial garden will be carried out sympathetically.
He added: “The extension to the garden and the walled area proposed will offer greater protection from the weather and improve the setting for the tributes to be laid.”
Full funding is still to be found before work can begin, however, Highland Council has allocated £65,000 to the £95,972 cost.
The area, which the proposal will be constructed on, is to be filled with boulders from Achnacarry.
The stones have been chosen in recognition of the original training environment of the commandos.
However, Mr Harvey has urged a rethink after stating that the ashes of many soldiers have unofficially been spread in this area.
Plaques will required to be removed, a move Mr Harvey says will cause distress to families and disturb buried ashes.
‘This is our place to remember him’
Mr Harvey said: “I think the granite boulders would be a marvellous effect right round and not in the middle.
“That is an area for people to come and reflect.
“What our own family do is we go to the ground and really think in front of my dad’s plaque and then go up to the memorial to pay our respects there.
“For me, especially with my dad being buried in the Netherlands, it holds a special place for us.
“That is our place to remember him.”
Plea for talks
Highland Council said the proposal came about following discussions with the Royal Marines and the Commando Veterans Association (CVA) over the past decade.
However, Mr Harvey, who is a member of the CVA, said he and others who oppose the idea were not consulted.
He is seeking urgent talks before work begins.
He said: “We never received any communication at all about this proposal.
“Most of us have talked about an area with a low wall and that would be really good to have.
“What we are against is the granite in the middle.
“All these people who have put plaques in and/or scattered ashes, won’t know about this as many people have only visited once to put up plaques.
“We wouldn’t mind even coming up and seeing them and chatting about it all.”
Council says area will not be disturbed
A Highland Council spokesman said: “The boulders which are to be placed within the centre-circle of the garden, will go directly onto the ground, which is not disturbed.
“The new masonry wall which is to surround the outer-circle, will incur some digging to form the foundation/base, but any soils to be removed will be retained on the wider site.”
The local authority said all tributes will be photographed before being carefully removed to another part of the site and laid again once work is complete.
