Deane Road Jewish Cemetery update

Just a brief update for those of you who like me, love our historic Jewish Cemetery in Deane Road, Kensington, Liverpool

I have been working hard with the consultants to produce our action plan and activity sheets, a major part of the work we will be submitting for our Heritage Lottery Fund bid. It runs to many pages and we have been writing and editing and re-editing for months. The management and maintenance plan has also been signed off, as have the architects plans, surveys, lots of consultation (but there is always room for more so if you want to comment on the plans, please contact me). We have identified the need for some staff to support the project while refurbishment goes ahead and immediately after the re-opening of the cemetery and we have agreed job descriptions and a timetable for that. We have costed everything out and it is going to be more than we had first thought, primarily because the cost of building materials have increased, we want a decent building to host a toilet, a small exhibition space, the staff, and school materials. So we are going to have to face an extra meeting of the HLF to persuade them to agree to pay more than we had first thought.

It is a tense time, years of work will stand and fall over the next few months. We hope to get the completed application before the December committee of the HLF.

It's taking up a huge amount of my voluntary time at the moment but it will be worth it if we are successful and we can open up the cemetery to much larger numbers of people.

Luciana Berger, our new MP in Liverpool Wavertree and herself Jewish has agreed to join our list of prestigious patrons.

And volunteer professionals have been doing some great work cleaning up some of our more iconic graves.

Watch this space!


Photo: Before photo of the Miriam De Menasce monument, wait until you see the finished stone!