Memorial for British twin towers victims

The Government is to spend up to £1m on a memorial garden to the British victims of the 11 September terrorist attacks, The Independent on Sunday can reveal.

A proposed design for the monument, to be built opposite the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square, London, is expected to be unveiled this week by Tessa Jowell, the Culture Secretary.

The decision to commemorate the 67 "known" British victims of the attacks on the World Trade Centre with a garden, rather than a cenotaph, was taken after months of delicate consultation with the bereaved families. It is hoped that the completed memorial, which is likely to incorporate a stone plinth listing the names of the deceased, will be opened to coincide with the second anniversary of the tragedy next year.

News that the memorial, to be funded by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, will take the form of a garden may surprise some in the wake of the ongoing furore surrounding the long-awaited monument to the late Diana, Princess of Wales.

Friends of the princess reacted with emotions ranging from anger to bemusement when details of the proposed memorial to her, a fountain in Hyde Park, London, were made public 10 days ago. Designed by the American landscape architect Kathryn Gustafson, the memorial to the princess will include water running through channels of white stone from the top of a hill into an oval pond.

For the 11 September memorial, however, a garden was felt appropriate as a means of fostering an atmosphere of quiet contemplation for those wanting to pay their respects to the dead.

Confirmation of the outline details of the memorial comes nearly two months after the US government pledged to offer the families of the UK victims up to £2.7m each in compensation for their loss.

Though a precise death toll for the 11 September attacks will probably never be known, the closest estimate for the number of British victims is 67, of which 16 are confirmed dead and 51 are still classed as "missing".

Altogether, 83 of those believed to have been killed are described by the Foreign Office as having had "close British ties".

The vast number of UK passport holders caught up in the tragedy were working in the World Trade Centre at the time of the attacks, many of them for the financial services group Cantor Fitzgerald.