New 'topple tests' for cemetery

New-style "topple" tests are to be carried out at a Wombourne churchyard for the second time in days.

The testing will take place as bosses also announced a new long-awaited cemetery in the village would be open within weeks following a 10-year campaign by residents.

South Staffordshire Council undertook safety tests at St Benedict Biscop churchyard in Wombourne in summer 2007.

It led to memorials that moved when pressure was applied being secured with posts and tape if they were deemed unsafe.

More than 350 are still temporarily stabilised but after new Government guidance was released, the council is preparing to carry out the tests again.

This time, however, the council says it will be by "visual inspection" after the previous method caused uproar among mourners.

South Staffordshire Council spokesman Jamie Angus said today: "We tested the headstones at St Benedict Biscop in 2007 in line with the government's guidance.

"Earlier this year, the Ministry of Justice reviewed their guidelines and as a result we've amended our policy to take account of their new recommendations.

"Within the next week or so we're likely to be re-testing some of those stones which failed the original tests. The test will now be based, in the first instance, on a visual inspection based on the potential of risk."

Council chiefs say those still deemed unsafe will remain stabilised. A total of 463 stones failed the safety tests completed in 2007. Back then more than 1,000 relatives of people buried at St Benedict Biscop churchyard demanded the topple tests be stopped.

Families feared the 35kg (77lb) pressure used in the method was too strong, but the council was later cleared of any wrongdoing in a report by the Diocese of Lichfield.

It today also emerged that the finishing touches were now being made to a new burial ground on seven acres of land in Sytch Lane.

Council bosses said they hoped it would be open next month, ahead of schedule, after months of work. The new cemetery will have space for 2,840 plots. Final negotiations to turn the land into a burial ground were agreed by the district and county council in May 2008 after years of discussions.

The project had originally been due to start before Christmas last year but was delayed until the new year after it emerged the legal agreements for the district council to buy the Sytch Lane land from the county council were taking longer to finalise than expected. Residents have campaigned for years for a new cemetery after having to bury loved ones outside the village or have them cremated against their wishes.

It is anticipated the cemetery will meetneeds of the village for the next 30 years.

Originally the plan was to finish the work in January 2010, but bosses are speeding up the work to try and get it open before the end of the year.