Council’s cemetery headstone warning
Friday 26th March 2010, 10:35AM GMT.
Headstones at Oswestry Cemetery which are deemed unsafe could be laid flat or part-buried, council bosses warned today.
And Oswestry Town Council said if the memorials have “heritage value” the authority could pay for the repair itself and bill relatives for the work.
Glenys Davies, facilities manager at the council, said: “Oswestry Town Council will be carrying out further safety checks on the memorials within Oswestry Cemetery this year.
“The checks involve a simple visual and hand test to determine instability.
“Memorials will continue to be tested once every five years, but there will be greater emphasis on inspecting higher risk memorials, such as crosses and larger stones, and those in more prominent locations.
“Owners will be required to repair memorials that are unsafe and every reasonable effort will be made to contact them, or their heirs, to enable them to instruct a qualified memorial mason to make a proper repair.
“However if these efforts fail then the council will make the memorial permanently safe by part-burying it, laying it flat, or where a memorial has heritage or amenity value, paying for a repair to be made.”
A similar drive in 2005 to flatten gravestones at cemeteries at Hengoed and Rhydycroesau in case they fell on mourners sparked a row with the move being described as “health and safety gone mad”.
Shropshire Star on Twitter
Keep updated with the latest breaking news and content on our Twitter feed.
Lifestyle
Interactive Dining Out map
Hundreds of reviews by the Shropshire Star and Express & Star's teams to help you decide where to eat.
Entertainment
All the film reviews
Before you plan a trip to the pictures, get our critics' verdicts on all the latest movie releases.
OUR NEW APP
Get the new Shropshire Star app
Download the Shropshire Star’s new app to your iPad or iPhone to get one week of access to our digital newspapers absolutely FREE.
shropshirestar.com
Popular sections
Useful links
