A dream has become reality for campaigners wanting to build a memorial to nearly 3,000 inmates of Bradford’s former lunatic asylum.

A memorial garden will be created to commemorate those buried in pauper’s graves at the former West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum at High Royds, Menston, after the campaigners received the keys to its burial ground yesterday.

Derek Hutchinson, a 62-year-old former patient and chairman of the Friends of High Royds Memorial Garden, was at the site in Buckle Lane to mark the start of the major project.

He said: “This is the best thing I have ever done.

“But it is not for us, it is for the people who are buried in the ground there. We are going to do them proud because that is what they deserve.”

The effort has been a two-year struggle to finally get to the stage where work can be carried out on the graveyard.

The friends group will now refurbish the derelict chapel.

Plans are also in the pipeline for a wildflower meadow with benches and a sculpture commemorating 2,861 patients bur-ied there between 1890 and 1969.

They include six babies, most of whom died as patients.

Gardener Kevin Lupton, who will look after the site on a full-time basis, will now work with a team to clean it up ready for work to start. A full-time security guard has also been employed.

Mr Hutchinson, who was a patient in the early 1970s when he underwent electric shock therapy, said he had been contacted by the families of more than 200 people buried at Buckle Lane, offering donations.