Refurbishment of The Canadian Memorial, Green Park, London

The Canada Memorial in London's Green Park commemorates over one million members of the Canadian Forces who served alongside British Forces during both the First and Second World Wars. It was designed by the renowned French-Canadian sculptor Pierre Granche (1948-1997), was erected during the course of 1993 and was unveiled by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in 1994.

The sculpture is an inclined plane of red granite bisected by a walkway into two distinct halves, representing Britain and Canada's joint participation in the two World Wars. The narrow walkway, dividing the memorial in two, faces the direction of the Canadian port of Halifax in Nova Scotia, from where many Canadian service personnel originally sailed for Europe. The angled plane has been inset with a total of 506 sculpted bronze Maple leaves, the Canadian national emblem. Water gently flows across the sloping surface and creates the illusion that the fallen Maple leaves are floating and moving. An inscription at the centre of the memorial reads: "In two world wars one million Canadians came to Britain and joined the fight for freedom. From danger shared, our friendship prospers."

The water element was originally designed by Ian Kirkpatrick and David Bracey of The Fountain Workshop Limited who both worked alongside Pierre Granche back in 1993 to achieve the sculptors' vision for the water effect.

The mechanical and electrical system serving the water feature was originally installed in 1993 and many of the current elements are still original. The feature has been maintained and managed by The Fountain Workshop Limited on behalf of Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) through the Commonwealth War Graves Commission ("CWGC") over the course of the last twenty-seven years, however all of the original equipment has now surpassed its working life and now requires replacement or renovation.

The VAC & CWGC now wish to engage a specialist contractor to either;

a) carry out a thorough and comprehensive refurbishment of the current mechanical and electrical system serving the water feature, including refurbishment of the stone capping, or

b) completely replace the system;

Either way, the Commission is looking to take full advantage of technological innovations and improvements since the system was originally installed, to bring the system up to date and to "future-proof" the Memorial for subsequent generations, however it is essential that the Contractor understands and empathises with the design of the Memorial.

To this end, VAC and the CWGC will be hosting a site visit at the Memorial on Tuesday 10th March at 10am.

To be invited to the Site Visit, and, if applicable, to participate in any future tender, potential suppliers must first express their interest via the CWGC Tender Portal https://in-tendhost.co.uk/cwgc/aspx/Home or via the link on the "Doing Business with the Commission" pages on our website (see "additional Text" below)

Additional information: To be invited to the Site Visit, and, if applicable, to participate in any future tender, potential suppliers must first express their interest via the CWGC Tender Portal https://in-tendhost.co.uk/cwgc/aspx/Home or via the link on the "Doing Business with the Commission" pages on our website https://www.cwgc.org/about-us/doing-business-with-the-commission.

Guidance on how to register can be found here: https://in-tendhost.co.uk/cwgc/aspx/BuyerProfiles. When registering, please complete as much information as possible.

Please note: When entering a contact email address for both the Primary and Additional Users, you are advised to add a generic address which can be readily accessed by more than one person i.e. "[email protected]", rather than a personal address such as "[email protected]". This way you will still be able to access any communications sent by us via the portal if an individual in unavailable through leave or sickness, for example.