Uproar over graves costs

A petition with more than 2,000 names is to be presented to Cannock Chase Council in protest at the authority charging relatives for improvements to unsafe grave headstones.

The petition, which could eventually number 3,000 signatures within weeks, will be handed in at a meeting of the full council on Wednesday, January 24 by Labour member Frank Allen. It was organised by campaigner Harold Westwood.

Mr Westwood, of Old Fallow Avenue, wants the authority to take more responsibility over the costs of rep- airing unsafe headstones.

He is well known for his protests outside the council and has described Cannock Cemetery as reminiscent of a "war zone" with hundreds of wooden stakes used to make the graves safer.

Bosses at the district council carried out safety tests in May 2005 after a number of fatal accidents in cemeteries elsewhere in the UK. Around 1,200 headstones failed push tests and the council put in wooden stakes to secure them.

Owners of unsafe plots at the Pye Green Road site have been given a deadline of May this year to contact the council with each of them facing a bill of £130 per headstone.

Councillor Allen, who tried to add £80,000 to the cemetery budget in a bid to reduce the cost of repairs, has added his support to the petition.

He said: "£130 is a substantial amount and I know se- veral ladies who are in their 80s who are responsible for four headstones. They could be looking at a bill of over £500 on a normal pension."

Councillor Allen, whose own mother and father's grave has been deemed unsafe, added: "The council is the landowner and I would say that if any health and safety issues came up they would be responsible most if not all of the time."

He and Mr Westwood are hoping councillors will act on the petition and make moves to try and reduce the financial cost of having headstones repaired. People have until May 2007 to contact the council or the headstones could be laid flat.

By Shaun Lintern