Gravestones: "We were right"

The controversial issue rose to the surface again during a question and answers session in the Rother Council chamber.

Cllr Stuart Wood challenged Cllr Gubby over the way the council dealt with the situation commenting that Rother had lost the good-will of the local community.

But Cllr Gubby insisted that Rother carried out its duties with "sensitivity and respect".

There was a storm of protest in Rye when Rother officials laid flat more than 100 memorial stones at Rye Cemetery. In many cases relatives were not informed and assumed it was the work of vandals. Rother faces accusations of "desecration" from furious councillors and towns people.

Following health and safety advice, Rother now faces spending 8,000 burying the memorial stones it has toppled over and left in situation.

Cllr Wood said: "Other councils have gone to great lengths to find and contact the relatives of unsafe memorials. The process has cost Rother the goodwill of the community as a result of this action. Surely it would have cost the council less to have simply made safe the unsafe memorials by fixing them in an upright position as opposed to laying them flush to the ground at yet more cost."

Cllr Gubby hit back: "The stones were carefully laid down. The council has made strenuous efforts to trace the owners of those memorials that have been made safe in this way, as they retain responsibility for further maintenance.

"Unfortunately, many of the owners cannot be contacted, leaving the council to deal with the matter.

"Our officers discharged their responsibility in a sympathetic way in very difficult circumstances.

"Different authorities have addressed the way in which they managed risks in different ways. When this council considered how it wished to deal with the risks it decided to do so by reducing them to the minimum."

"In implementing that decision, the Council's officers carried out their duties with the utmost sensitivity and respect.

"The costs to the Council to date are far less than the potential costs, if having identified a memorial as unsafe, a child was crushed or injured by it falling."