WHITWELL War Memorial will receive a makeover thanks to £500 from a war memorial grants scheme.

Niton and Whitwell Parish Council will steam clean the memorial, allowing names to become legible and improving the memorial’s overall appearance.

The parish council was originally approached by the niece of a serviceman whose name is recorded on the memorial, asking for her uncle’s name to be clearly legible, but the council soon decided to clean-up the memorial entirely.

Cllr Tim Addison, council chairman, said: “Whitwell is a small and friendly village, and while the village itself has grown in size since the war, many of the names commemorated on our war memorial feel very familiar.”