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Solid solution for toppling tombstones

02 November 2006

CHURCHES worried about gravestones toppling over should copy a radical cure in a Harrogate cemetery.

After reports that councils elsewhere had used scaffolding to fix leaning tombstones, Harrogate's head of Bereavement Services, Patrick Kilburn, said his council had solved the problem.

The council now insists that any gravestone must be secured to a "shoe" fixed in a 50-metre pier of reinforced concrete buried a foot under the ground.

"They won't move in a month of Sundays," Mr Kilburn said on Tuesday when describing the council's success. The system costs "a bit more" than conventional systems but "it should last for ever". It also copes with heart-shaped stones and flower holders, something that present church rules will not permit.

"There are a lot of different systems out there, but the Church should have a look at this one."

Harrogate took the step to guarantee cemetery safety, after a child died in an accident with a gravestone four years ago.

The problem has worried councils throughout Britain. The Health and Safety Executive reported three deaths and 21 serious accidents with gravestones since 2000. But it said some local authorities were over-reacting by flattening all gravestones.

"The law accepts there is no such thing as zero risk. If there is a foreseeable risk, and if they had done nothing to manage that risk, there could be a question of liability," a spokesman said. "But they need to keep things in perspective and proportionate to the level of risk."

The Church had a good safety record, with tough regulations introduced two years ago, Jonathan Goodchild, a law officer for Church House, said. The rules advise single-stone "monoliths" with a third of their height buried below the ground.

Change the rules
A bereavement consultant, Mrs Janet Dacombe, wants the Church to allow heart-shaped gravestones and gravestones decorated with teddy bears. She petitioned the Archbishop of Canterbury after hearing of a small boy who wanted to inscribe "Daddy" on his father's grave but was refused. Another child, who had lost both parents, was not allowed to place a tiny frog where his parents were laid, she said. Her petition was signed by Countess Mountbatten of Burma, supported by Claire Rayner, and backed by bereaved families and clergy.

Best value.
The Bishop of Coventry, the Rt Revd Colin Bennetts, told a House of Lords debate this week that Church of England funeral fees were far lower than those of local authorities, services were seemly, and there was "the after-sales service of ongoing pastoral care for the bereaved".

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