Shropshire Star

Action planned as cemetery flooding forces funeral postponement

A family was forced to postpone a funeral because of flooding at a cemetery which left several graves under water.

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Oswestry Town council said it was holding an urgent meeting to look at ways that the flooding problems at the town's cemetery can be dealt with.

Councillors expressed their deepest sympathies to the family after hearing that health and safety risks had led to the decision to call off the burial which had been planned for last weekend - when snow and flooding hit the region.

Family friend Jess Lewis, spoke at the full council meeting saying that the family had been heartbroken the funeral could not go ahead.

She said her own mother and her cousin's graves were in the cemetery and that it was the area by the new remembrance garden that have been badly affected.

Mayor, Councillor Duncan Kerr, said it was a very serious situation and said the burial committee would be meeting urgently to look at the problem and draw up an action plan.

Councillor Peter Cherrington said: "There is a really need for additional drainage in that bottom area of the cemetery."

Miss Lewis said her mother, Glenys, died in September after suffering from cancer.

She said it was so upsetting for everyone who had loved ones buried at the cemetery who found their graves were affected by flooding.

And she said she felt desperately sorry for her friend's family.

"To lose someone you love is awful enough but then not to be able to go ahead with the funeral was unbearable for them," she said.