Rother plans to lay down loose gravestones

FAMILIES who fail to look after their loved one's gravestone could find they're in for a shock the next time they visit the cemetery.

In future those who ignore safety warnings about unsafe headstones will find them laid flat by council workers.

It comes after Rother councillors agreed at a cabinet meeting the district shouldn't have to foot the bill when memorials become loose and dangerous.

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A council survey earmarked a total of 100 across all three cemeteries in the district as being in need of urgent attention.

Under the changes headstones at most risk will be laid flat immediately. In other cases, relatives will be given a three-month time limit to take action before the headstone is laid down.

But chief executive Derek Stevens insisted it's nothing like the situation in Lewes recently where cemetery officials caused uproar when they laid dangerous stones flat without any warning.

"We haven't done that. We will spend up to three months trying to contact relatives to give them the opportunity to have the memorial put back.

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"Clearly some of the memorials are very dangerous and we have a liability to the people visiting the cemetery and also to the people who work there."

Civil servants had suggested councillors might want to allocate around 10,000 of council money for repairing memorials where relatives could no longer be traced.

But Cllr Robin Patten said it was unfair to use tax payers' money for something that was essentially up to the family.

"I don't think it's the council tax payers' responsibility. It's down to the family to maintain it in the way it was set up originally. If we make a real attempt to find the family then we have to consider the possibility of laying it flat, as long as it's done in a sensitive way."

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However Cllr Brian Kentfield warned there could be problems under the new system: "Children move away and parents stay. They visit as and when they can. When they come up months later there'll be flak."

It's the second time in a month the district's cemeteries have come under the spotlight.

One grieving widower complained about the council's attitude after they told him to remove unsuitable plaque which had been on his wife's grave for five years.

Mr Stevens added: "I don't want to talk about individual cases. I am mindful of the sensitivity of these cases but I'm quite satisfied that my officers acted quite properly. There are clear rules and regulations as to what can and what cannot go on gravestones."

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