David Adjaye and Ron Arad’s design for a UK Holocaust Memorial has been halted by the country’s High Court following a legal challenge. As reported by UK outlet Building Design, the £100 million ($130 million) proposal was ruled to have been in breach of a one-hundred-year-old law which protected the site from development.

The case was brought to court by the London Historic Parks and Gardens Trust, who appealed a previous decision by the UK government that the project could proceed. Opponents of the scheme included senior religious figures, local community groups, and some Jewish leaders and Holocaust survivors.

The scheme was due to be constructed in London’s Victoria Tower Gardens. Those who filed the legal challenge claimed that the plans did not comply with the London County Council (Improvements) Act 1900, which prohibited Victoria Tower Gardens from containing anything other than a public garden. The judge presiding over the case agreed with the group’s argument and ordered that the project cannot proceed in its current form.

Delivering her ruling, Justice Thornton noted that both sides of the case “support the principle of  a compelling memorial to the victims of the Holocaust and all those persecuted by the Nazis” but that the issue at hand was “the proposed location of the memorial in Victoria Tower Gardens.”

As reported by The Guardian, the UK government has submitted a request to appeal against the ruling. The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, who supported the project, said they were “surprised by the high court decision and hope that this does not preclude or overshadow the burning need for the national memorial.”

The project was initially conceived by former Prime Minister David Cameron in 2015 and was rejected by Westminster City Council in early 2020. Architect Adjaye previously cited anti-Semitism as a force behind some of the scheme’s considerable opposition.

Following a subsequent public inquiry into the project, the scheme was approved in July 2021 by then-Minister of State for Housing, Christopher Pincher. Construction was set to begin in 2022, with completion by 2025. This timeline, and the project as a whole in its current location, are now in doubt.