Although luckily for me, I do not have many reasons to visit this cemetery, I am still angered by this ridiculous idea of grassing the graves over, and more so by the fact that there are broken headstones and unsightly clamps and posts. As a child visiting relatives memorials, I was told, yelled at and smacked for the slightest encroachment onto anyone's 'plot' Now I find
that there is heavy machinery doing what a young lad might have done is very, very disrespectful in my eyes, and the fact that people we voted for have said, "Can't afford a team to go around with lawnmowers or strimmers, just drive a heavy duty mower over it" makes me want to be not very nice back.

I shall be emailing the people on your site, as you ask me to, just hope something comes of it before it's my turn to have the horror of broken memorials etc. to deal with.

10/09/04 (Name and Address Supplied)

Last year I buried my youngest son aged 26 years and thought that I would be able to tend his grave keep it planted with flowers all year round and in time come to terms with my loss by having somewhere nice to do this. Like many other bereaved families my son has many friends around the world who want to visit his grave in what once was a beautiful place, but like myself and many others feel that sadly the site looks very neglected. Lots of graves are so well cared for but when the mowers come in watch out.

We all know that some people have last wishes to be buried and that wish is met, but if the people left behind cannot or do not wish to keep up the grave, this is sad, however these graves should be given over to grass. But the people who want to plant should be allowed to do so, I feel this would help the cemetery staff maintain what once only about a year ago was a lovely place to be laid to rest in and visit. At the moment I plant within the two feet laid down by the council but I dig over the rest of the soil.

I do not want seed or turf and will plant in the Autumn the whole plot which we paid for. My son will have his garden.

I would like to add that I am sorry to have missed your protests but I will continue my support to your group now that I can follow on the web.

26/08/04 (Name and Address Supplied)

The campaign was actually run by the newspaper, in that we carried letters and stories from people whose family graves had been damaged as part of a so-called health and safety initiative by Oldham Council. In our leading articles, the Chronicle took the side of the people whose graves  had been damaged (many of them needlessly) and, by continuing to carry letters and stories from distressed and angry people the pressure grew on the local authority.
Eventually opposition parties, too, joined in, increasing the pressure and, ultimately, the council gave way and agreed to foot the bill for the restoration of grave stones.

We were able to discover that Stockport Council, like Oldham in Greater Manchester, had agreed to pay for the restoration of gravestones in its cemeteries and the fact that it was already being done added to the pressure on Oldham Council.

My advice would be to find as many local authorities as you can who have agreed to pay to erect the stones, including Oldham and Stockport, of course. What that does is to add to the shame of the local authority on the grounds of if poor Oldham can pay, then why can't Torquay?

Obviously it will be a great help if you can enlist the support of your local newspaper or newspapers. Councillors respond best to pressure applied through the media, which tends to whip up support among those who are not necessarily directly involved in the issue. That is certainly our experience in Oldham.

I wish you well in your campaign against what always struck me as being a heavy-handed, draconian measure that demonstrated a complete lack of respect for the dead and as lack of though for the living.

Jim Williams
Editor

27/08/04

Leeds City Council pays for all costs to repair headstones

Peter Chadwick, chairman of the Stoke-on-Trent Action Group, which campaigns on behalf of grave owners, said: "My feelings on this are clear - one in three failing the test is too many. I do not agree with the test and cannot understand why there cannot be uniformity of testing from council to council.

"We will not agree with this until some form of British standard is introduced which we can work to, taking local ground conditions into the equation."

When the city council's latest figures were drawn up, a further 394 headstones had been laid down after owners failed to respond to the authority's attempts to warn them their graves had been deemed high risk.

Meanwhile, Mr Chadwick has urged the city council to abandon the current procedure - which places the financial responsibility for making headstones safe with grave owners - in favour of the programme adopted by officials in Leeds.

Leeds City Council, which began inspecting memorials in its 22 cemeteries and 18 closed churchyards at the start of the year, pays for the repair of any headstones found to be unsafe, meaning owners do not have to cover the cost.

Mr Chadwick said: "This is exactly the sort of procedure we would like our city council to adopt. In Leeds, the council accepts cemetery ground belongs to them and graves are therefore their responsibility. If they can do that in Leeds, why not in Stoke-on-Trent?"

Full Story

Local Government Ombudsman finds against Stoke-on-Trent City Council

Stoke-on-Trent City Council (03/B/5516, 5739, 5869, 5984, 6066, 6318, 6425, 6828, 7247, 7364-5, 7481, 7681, 7685, 7828 & 8564)

Death

Sixteen owners of graves in the Council’s cemeteries complained that there were failings in the way that the Council dealt with the identification of unsafe memorials (usually vertical headstones).
The Council introduced a programme for inspecting memorials in its cemeteries. In 2002 the Council received several complaints from grave owners who found their memorials had been laid flat. It therefore decided to commission an independent review by a consultant. The consultant found that the Council had failed to give many grave owners an opportunity to take action by not attempting to write to them to notify them of the intention to lay the memorials flat. He criticised the testing method used to identify unsafe memorials and the Council’s failure to assess the likelihood of a memorial killing or seriously injuring someone. The Council changed its procedures and Council officers received further training. Re-testing commenced and the Council subsequently concluded that memorials tested between October and December 2002 were improperly considered to be unsafe, and the owners of graves laid flat at that time should receive reimbursement for the cost of reinstatement. Some complainants were concerned about the new application form they are required to sign before they receive reimbursement, but the Ombudsman did not criticise the Council in this respect.
The Ombudsman found maladministration, and considered that the Council had remedied the complainants’ injustice by reimbursing the cost of reinstating the damaged memorials.

16 February 2004

Full Ombudsman Reports