March 6, 2015 4.52 pm This story is over 108 months old

Work begins on £90k Lincoln Tank Memorial

Work underway: The first sod of turf on the site of the Lincoln Tank Memorial was finally dug on March 6.

The first sod of turf on the site of the Lincoln Tank Memorial was dug on March 6 at Tritton Road Roundabout.

Construction work officially begins on the £90,000 memorial on March 9, and the project is set to be unveiled on May 10.

The tank will be manufactured by Lincoln-based Rilmac Fabrication, with construction group Willmott Dixon installing the memorial on the Tritton Road roundabout.

The latest designs for the Lincoln Tank Memorial, which will be unveiled on May 10.

The latest designs for the Lincoln Tank Memorial, which will be unveiled on May 10.

The memorial will sit close to the site of Foster’s factory where the first tank came off the production line in 1916 and will include the figures of Tritton, Rigby and Wilson who were the designers, developers and manufacturers of the tank.

The project has received the support of Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, who pledged £15,000 to the scheme during his visit to Lincoln in February.

Property development company Taylor Lindsey has also donated £1,000 to the Tank Memorial Fund to coincide with the turf cutting ceremony.

The Taylor Lindsey team donated £1,000 to the fund this week.

The Taylor Lindsey team donated £1,000 to the fund this week.

Mayor of Lincoln, Councillor Brent Charlesworth, said: “It’s absolutely brilliant that work has finally got underway on the memorial and it’s great credit to the people who have got the project off the ground and raised the funds needed.

“The memorial will be for everyone in Lincoln to enjoy, to share. It celebrates the city’s engineering history and looks to its future and I’m sure that it will be something that the people of Lincoln will be justifiably proud of.”

Joe Cooke, Chairman of the Lincoln Tank Memorial group, added: “The memorial is important to Lincoln because of the engineering skills that the city has produced over the years – if the tank had not been invented in Lincoln, the First World War would have gone on into the 1920s.”