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Keeping Cemetery visitors safe
A new approach to routine safety checks on gravestones will be introduced across the borough’s cemeteries later this year.
Comments from grave owners and visitors have helped the Council revise the way it tests and makes safe head stones that may be in danger of toppling over and causing injury to visitors and people working in cemeteries.
In future, a month before testing begins, the Council will write to registered grave owners outlining a number of options should their headstones fail the safety test. Owners could then choose to arrange for their own stonemason to secure an unsafe stone, or allow the council’s contractors to either secure it with a purpose-built clamp or lay it flat on the grave. Signs at each site and advertising in local newspapers will let people know what is happening and explain why it is important to make these heavy stones secure.
Checks have been introduced throughout England as headstones can become unsafe after a number of years, or if they were not adequately fixed in the first place. Special equipment is used to put pressure on the stones to see is there is any movement. The new clamps are specially designed to ensure that the stone is held securely in its original upright position but not damaged in any way.
Cllr Neil Reddin, Executive Councillor for Community Safety and Leisure said: “Rather than taking health and safety concerns to an extreme, we are now implementing a common sense solution to this sensitive problem. Clearly no one wants to cause offence to the bereaved and we feel that securing memorial stones is far more preferable than presenting relatives with the shock and distress of seeing headstones laid flat.”
ENDS