Within two weeks of the DeLank granite Diana Memorial Fountain being opened by the Queen in Hyde Park on 6 July it had been closed again.

In fact, it was closed three times. The first was the day after it had opened, when winds gusted up to 70mph and stripped trees in the park of their leaves, which then blew into the Fountain and blocked the pumps.

Royal Parks say they had intended to put filters over the pumps before leaves fell in autumn, but they had not anticipated autumn arriving in July. The second time was related, again because a pump was not working properly. It had been turned off for the regular weekly cleaning of the Fountain and when it was turned on again it was not functioning properly because of a blockage believed to be related to the high winds. It extended the cleaning time by about one-and-a-half hours.

The third occasion was because three people among the many thousands (far more than expected) who have visited it fell over in the water. One of them, a child, suffered a bump on the head and "some bleeding". Royal Parks told NSS the Fountain would remain closed until the Department of Culture Media & Sport had responded to a report on the matter.

Greg McErlean, head of major projects for Royal Parks, was responsible for co-ordinating the input of the designers, engineers and Health, Safety, Ethical & Environmental experts to the report. He said: "We have looked at a whole range of options. We examined having something that was 'look but don't touch', but that was discarded immediately as being counter to the point of the memorial.

"We considered leaving it as it is, with some extra anti-slip texturing. That option wouldn't tackle the impact that the huge numbers of people were having. It is these numbers that we need to look at, to ensure that people are able to come and enjoy the memorial safely and happily."

A spokesperson for Royal Parks said later that the stone contractors (CWO from Chichester in Sussex) had been back to the Fountain to roughen the surface of the stone in a small area of the Fountain where the three people slipped.

There was a suggestion in the national press and carried on BBC news that the stone was becoming slippery because of algal growth, but Royal Parks say they deliberately sunk a borehole to supply water to the Fountain that was not rich in nutrients, in order to restrict the growth of algae. And the weekly cleaning keeps the stone free of slippery growth. As we went to press, the Fountain was still closed. Royal Parks say that when the memorial re-opens there could be signs around it, perhaps warning people to restrict paddling to safe, flat areas, banning dogs from the water and reminding people not to drop litter.

STILL FINE STONEWORK

The Diana Memorial Fountain is a 210 linear metre DeLank Cornish granite watercourse, made from some of the most technically sophisticated stonework ever seen (see the previous issue of Natural Stone Specialist) thanks to computer, machinery and tool developments made especially to produce it. Those developments are now available to a wider audience from Texxus, set up by Barron Gould, the designers of the surface detail of the memorial, and S McConnell & Son, the Northern Irish stonemasons who cut and shaped the stones.

Whether the Memorial was well conceived or not, the stonework remains a remarkable achievement.

Norman McKibbin, managing director of McConnells, says: "As far as we are concerned it's still a beautiful piece of work. We made it, but how it's used is not the stonemason's province. We are very pleased everyone likes the way it was made."

RESPONSIBILITY

Tessa Jowell, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media & Sport, whose department met £3million of the £3.6million cost of the memorial (the Royal parks found the rest), was quoted in The Sunday Telegraph as blaming "a small number of people who appear to have behaved irresponsibly" for spoiling the Diana Memorial. She said people had allowed their dogs to run in the water and had dropped litter into it, even nappies.

She is quoted as saying it was "a pretty sad situation" that people needed to be told how to behave. She accepted there were problems that had to be sorted out, but added: "Once these are sorted, people have to be responsible in the way they let their children play in the fountain."

The memorial was designed by Kathryn Gustafson to reflect the life of the Princess of Wales, with the water bubbling and cascading down the 2.5m fall over surfaces designed to enliven the flow.

It was always intended that the public would be allowed access to the fountain and allowed to paddle in it, reflecting the idea that Diana was a 'princess of the people'.