Please also visit the Funerary Monuments Group page on this website, a group set up to advise Federation members on best practices
SAFETY IN CEMETERIES
There has been a lot of publicity in recent years about the stability of headstones and memorials.The introduction by some local councils and cemetery owners of topple testing and /or a deliberate policy of going into a burial ground and laying flat row upon row of headstones has caused much public reaction. The original explanation that it was a Health andSafety Executive Directive proved to be unfounded, an internal memo in the HSE noted awareness and concern on memorial safety but was not intended for general publication. Some councils have had to re-instate the laid down memorials or pay compensation when they did not follow the correct procedures. When stones appear to be unstable it is hoped that burial rights owners and other interested parties would be consulted. The cemetery owner has a duty of care and if the stonework cannot be safely supported or segregated from public access then to dismantle it may be the final option.
Edinburgh after stones laid flat for reasons of safety [now creating a trip hazzard]
It is not incidentally the older Victorian memorials that are the major cause of concern but in many cases headstones placed within the last 30 years. The industry is now addressing these failures and giving guidelines to stonemasons and cemetery managers on the installation of new headstones.
Statistically there are very few injuries and a even lower ratio of fatalities in cemeteries. Obviously if vandals enter a cemetery with the intention of trying to dislodge heavy stonework then accidents may well occur. For the normal well behaved visitor who is aware that many of the memorials are more than 100 years in age, the cemetery generally remains a safe venue.
See the Local Ombudsman's report by clicking Memorial Safety in Local Authorities Cemeteries
Don Bianco gave the following report to the 2005 AGM held at Arnos Vale, Bristol
Update on memorial safety
Point of clarification: the principal concern that I have is with memorial safety to existing historic memorials and their remedial treatment rather than with new memorials that have their own standards. It is the application of these standards across the board without consideration of any particular nature and conditions that have the potential for adverse impact.
Generally memorials are dealt with by monumental masons but following a number of incidents, the involvement of cemetery managers and the active interest of the HSE extended into the political arena, relegating public opinion on inappropriate and misguided action taken by local authorities in their efforts to make the cemeteries safe. A particularly interesting fact emerges from research which reveals that fatalities and most accidents have been caused by memorials that have been installed relatively recently within the last 30 years Preston, [1992], Liverpool, [1995] and others since indicative of the decline in standards of workmanship and unsatisfactory installation rather than the lack of monitoring of the condition of the structures, but placing blame unfairly on historic monuments.
Over the last year there has been activity in various quarters on this important matter into which we have fed our views whenever possible. This has been achieved not only on behalf of NFCF but through other representative bodies that align to the National Federation. I have talked with English Heritage, Bob Kindred, IBCA, ABA, HSE, Home Office and a number of interested individuals and have taken up the issue through Conservation and Management plans.
The ABA has prepared what can be regarded as a single piece of definitive specific guidance GUIDE TO THE MANAGEMENT OF SAFETY IN BURIAL GROUNDS. However the guidance is of a generalised nature and certainly not authorative. Research is still being carried out by IBCA and other parties to attempt to assess the situation within local authorities nationwide.
A Code of Practice should achieve certain fundalmental objectives.
1 A full inspection procedure properly documented should be carried out on all memorials.
2 A policy should be developed on the treatment of memorials found to be unsafe and to seek to identify funding at an early stage. Due account should be taken of the public's perception of the service, the cemetery's budget, conservation and diocese issues.
Many authorities are not dealing with the problem of potentially dangerous memorials. Where they are, many authorities adopt a knee-jerk reaction paying scant regard to current leglistlation. HSE are clear that under the Health and Safety at work Act 1974 authorities are required to have a suitable inspection programme of memorials. However the issues that need to be addressed include financial and legal limitations, health and safety issues, public opinion and ongoing aesthetics of the cemetery. Importantly to us is the nature and character of the heritage asset where conservation principles have been long understood and include:
1 The purpose of the repair - must not cause damage to the character of the structure, alter the features that give them their historic and architectural importance or unnecessarily disturbing or destroying historic features
2 The need for repair with minimal intervention to ensure long-term survival
3 Avoiding unnecessary damage
4 Adopting proven techniques
5 Truth to materials
The tragic accidents that occurred have heightened awareness and understanding that immediate action is required but it is clear that authorities have failed to recognise the importance of establishing suitable procedures.
The IBCA'S propsed Code of Practice sets out recommendations for inspection procedures and action options following on from the programme for memorials in immediate danger of falling that include:
1 Laying the stones down flat prior to any further action [the Italics are mine]
2 Cordining the area around with a safety notice prior to any further action [the Italics are mine]
Both of which accord to the Local Authorities Cemeteries Order 1977 which states " that such powers should not be construed as authorising any action in relation to any vault, tombstone or other memorial other than to remove a danger which arises by reason of the vault, tombstone or memorial which once the memorial has been made safe, all steps should be taken to contact the owner of the exclusive right of burial and to ensure that the memorial is suitably repaired." There is a third option i.e to effect an immediate repair.
In the laying flat of a memorial to remove any immediate danger, consideration should be given to the long-term repair because the aesthetics of the cemetery are being eroded or destroyed and public concern raised. But note a falling hazard could be replaced with a tripping hazard. Public opinion is a crucial but often dismissed factor in the sympathetic treatment of memorials.
Where memorials are potentially but not immediately dangerous, being unstable to some degree, repairs may be required in future to ensure their future security. Such memorials must not be classified as presenting an immediate danger and laid flat without the prescribed notification or the local authority will be in breach of the LACO 1977. In these cases damage should be recorded and efforts made to trace the burial right owner.
The existance of Conservation Orders applying to cemeteries [such orders not only apply to cemeteries but also to buildings but covers all structures within the curtilage. Note that in the Chancellor's [still unchallenged] judgement in West Norwood Cemetery [1994], he regarded the he regarded the curtilage of a listed memorial as being the whole cemetery. Also in three important cases Morris v National assembly for Wales, Att-Gen ex rel Sutcliffe v Calderdale BC and Skerrits of Nottingham Ltd v Secretary of State for Environment, Transport and the Regions means that the laying flat or dismantling a memorial without subsequently repairing it and returning it back to its original condition could be in breach of the Conservation Order.
Any work in consecrated areas of a cemetery requires a [diocese] faculty in addition to any notification under the LACO 1977. The local diocese must be advised of any emergency work where the memorial[s] pose any immediate danger. Crucially, Chanchellor Timothy Briden has stated that a faculty is required even for the testing of memorials.
A couple of peripheral but pertinent points:
1 When there has been a removal and replacement of a memorial to facilitate say a new burial, then it is the burial authority that is responsible for its safety and guarantee of workmanship.
2 Where it is found that subsidence of the gravespace consequent on poor digging, backfilling and maintenance was the primary reason for an adjacent memorial becoming unstable then the authority will become liable in any case of accident.
There are instances where blatant ignorance and arrogance manifests itself but I have to say that it is not as common as we believe. The feedback that I have had from members is I feel indicative of this. It is my intention over the forthcoming year to visit as many of the member cemeteries as possible to get an impression of the difficulties and to how extreme they are. Most of the London based cemeteries, Flaybrick and a few others do have an enlightened authority regime that can be controlled with gentle pressure. Where excesses occur they are serious. The implementation of correct policy is the key and it appears that the issue is working its way up the agenda.
i will issue progress reports via the Newsletter and the website.
I commend this report to the Committee.
Don Bianco
11th June 2005
[Don Bianco is a professional archectural advisor and a member of the Friends of West Norwood Cemetery]
Chippings banned in cemeteries
Southern Daily Echo 3rd March 2006
Graveside edging stones and chippings are to be outlawed over fears that they could injure people when the grass is being cut.
In a review of cemetery regulations, New Forest District Council Cabinet is tightening up the rules. One woman complained to the Cabinet that newly laid edging on her husband's grave at Eling had been removed without explanation. "The edging had only been there 7 or 8 days and I found it piled against my husband's headstone" said Mrs Patricia Golding.
Colin Read, the council's commercial services assistant director said the reason for enforcing the rules was to stop injuries caused by stones flying up during mowing or strimming of the grass.
Councillor Michael Thierry, who holds the council's environment portfolio pointed out that the Health and Safety Executive had records of 21 serious accidents in cemeteries including 5 fatalities during the last five years.
People will be contacted by letter and treated sensitively he said.
Update on Memorial Safety September 2006 [from a law report dated January 2006]
Don Bianco has kindly given us the latest update reproduced with the permission of Bob Flanagan, Friends of West Norwood Cemetery
LAW REPORT RE WELFORD ROAD CEMETERY LEICESTER
In an important judgement an ecclesiastical court has ruled that it should not readily grant a faculty which would result in the laying down of a significant number of gravestones unless it was clearly shown to be necessary. If councils were unwilling to pay for repairs to memorials temporary measures should be adopted whilst the owners are contacted. the memorials should then only be laid flat as a last resort.
Diocesan Chancellor James Behrens so held in the Leicester Consistory Court on 23rd January 2006 refusing to grant a confirmatory faculty to the petitioners, The Rev Howard Cocks, rural dean and Miss Lisa Handy, Bereavement Services Manager, Leicester City Council. The petitioners were applying on behalf of Leicester City Council for a comformatory faculty for the laying flat of more than 100 gravestones in Welford Road Cemetery, Leicester, because they were unsafe. The petition was opposed on behalf of a number of Polish families whose relatives were buried in the cemetery and who considered that the council had been over zealous and insensitive in the manner it had dealt with the laying down of the gravestones. They sought a restoration order requiring the council to repair and make safe at its own cost all memorials so laid down.
The Chancellor held that article 16[1] of the Local Authorities Cemetery Order 1977 provided that 'A burial may [a] put and keep in order any grave or vault or any tombstone or other memorial in a cemetery.' The authority's power was, however, subject in the consecrated part of a municipal cemetery, to the jurisdiction of the consistory court. In re: Keynsham Cemetery [2003] 1 WLR 66 confirmatory faculties were granted by the Bath and Wells Consistory Court for the laying down of a large number of memorials. That decision was not binding on the Leicester Consistory Court and furthermore there had been important changes since the case was decided [September 2002].
Firstly a special inquiry had been set up by Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council in 2003 after a similar dispute arose concerning public cemeteries in Stockport. The inquiry report indicated that the Stockport council should consider meeting the costs of re-erecting or re-establishing memorials even where the person responsible for the memorial was known and it did so. Secondly, the Home Office Report [January 2004] Burial Law and Policy in the 21st Century, the need for a sensitive and substainable approach, stated that there may be a need to review owner notification arrangements and other and other aspects of responding to threats to public safety. Thirdly, in a recent House of Commons debate the Under Secretary of State for Work and Pensions stated that any over-reaction to unsafe gravestones had the potential to cause great distress and that it was necessary to strike a sensible balance between the feelings of the bereaved and the burial authority's obligation to keep the cemetery safe.
These three matters indicated that the consistory court should not now grant a faculty which would result in the laying down of significant numbers of memorials unless this was clearly shown to be necessary. If councils were unwilling to pay for the costs of repairs, more use should be made of the temporary protection afforded by a stake placed behind the memorial and attached to it with a strap while efforts were made to contact the owner. Then, and only then as a last resort, might graves be laid flat.
The confirmatory faculty was therefore refused and the council required to re-establish all the memorials in the cemetery. A conditional faculty was granted for future work.
This judgment can only be a victory for common sense on the one hand, and a savage indictment of the Council's precepative action in Leicester's oldest municipal cemetery on the other. The judgment is all the more ironic since the Council had trumpeted a £950,000 'restoration' scheme with the support of Lottery funding. The repair of driveways and paths, restoration of the landscape, and the creation of a new visitor centre are amongst the work envisaged. Many of the cemetery's monuments are listed on a website but since the site dates from 2001 it is unclear how many of the monuments featured have been vandalised.
Obligation on cemetery authorities to contact the owners of graves in an unstable state
Each local council or owner of a cemetery should have a system in place to access risks in a cemetery and to contact burial rights owners or relatives where known if possible before dismantling any stonework. The Wyre Forest District Council guide on memorial safety is clear and comprehensive and a good example of what is required of a local authority.
Leeds Evening Post 30th March 2006
Headstones must be allowed to stand tall
Ombudsman backs relatives in cemetery inquiry
http://leedstoday.net/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=39&ArticleID=1411440
GUIDANCE TO LOCAL AUTHORITIES ISSUED BY THE DEPARTMENT FOR CONSTITUTIONAL AFFAIRS
5 March 2007
A letter issued by the DCA with the following signatories :
Harriet Harman QC MP [Secretary of State] 
Phil Woolas, MP 
Lord McKenzie of Luton 
Bill Callaghan [Chairman Health and Safety Commission] 
and Councillor Lord Bruce-Lockhart of the Weald. 
[Chairman Local Government Association]
The guidance was offered to The Chief Executive, District and London Borough Councils and Unitary Authorities, The Clerk, Town and Parish Councils, The Clerk, Joint Burial Authorities
MEMORIAL SAFETY
The purpose of this letter is to draw attention to concerns that have, once again, arisen about the way in which action in some cases have been taken to deal with unstable or dangerous memorials in public cemeteries. This is a matter on which Bill Callaghan wrote to all local authority Chief Executives on 1 June 2004.
Burial authorities provide an essential service for their communities. Many people still place great store in being able to bury their relatives in local cemeteries and derive much comfort from knowing that the remains rest in a particular location which they can visit. In most cases, families will also wish to place a gravestone or memorial to their relative on the grave it is what both the bereaved and visitors to a cemetery expect.
We know local authorities are well aware of the duty they have to ensure the safety of all areas for which they are responsible and to which the public have access. Managers have been taking proportionate action and that includes in respect of graveyards. Detailed advice on what they should do has been issued by various professional and representative bodies and most recently by the Local Government Ombudsmen. As a result, many managers have been systematically assessing headstones in their cemeteries and taking action to minimise risks to the public and others.
Unfortunately, from the individual cases that have been brought to our attention, it would seem that it is still the case that a few authorities have acted precipitously. Flattening a memorial may cause great offence and upset and should only be done where really necessary for public safety. Even warning signs and temporary supports, if garish or insensitively installed, can have a detrimental effect and appear to disregard the feelings of bereaved people and the wider community.
It is of course, important for those who manage burial grounds to take seriously their responsibilities for health and safety. However, the risks also have to be considered in context. Although the risk associated with unstable memorials is real and cannot be ignored. the number of accidents involving accidents involving memorials known to HSE is low, despite the very large number-perhaps millions- of memorials which exist. The Health and Safety Commission recently issued a set of key principles about sensible risk management which, amongst other things, emphasised the need to balance benefits and risks. Further information can be found at htpp//www.hse.gov.uk
Although managers will need to take practical steps to discharge their responsibilities, it will be important for authorities to approach the task in the right way. This means that authorities should always bear in mind
* the need for a proportionate response to the actual risks presented
*the importance of adequate prior public notice of inspection plans and remedial work
* the impact on individuals and communities if memorials are laid down, cordoned off or removed unexpectedly, and
* the need for great sensitivity and careful planning in the way the work is undertaken
If authorities can proceed on a basis of partnership with their communities, public support and confidence is likely to be retained and unnecessary distress and costs avoided, without compromising health and safety responsibilities.
[A copy of the letter was sent to cemetery managers]
Looking after the health and safety of your members - a few suggestions
Carry out and record in a permanent way a Health and Safety assessment and regularly update it with a record of any alterations or additions to be held by a nominated person eg Chairman of the group.
Ensure that volunteers are aware of the dangers of exposure to sun exposure including sunstroke and long term damage to the skin.
Volunteers should have suitable waterproof and thermal protective clothing and safety shoes or boots, protective eye covers,heavy duty gloves and notices placed in the area of working to warn the public or alternatively to divert to other paths.
Warnings of the risk of infection from animal faeces, rat urine, bites and stings from insects or snakes and uneven ground with possibly unseen animal or man made holes in the ground, branches or upward growing saplings or plants scratching the face, glass or sharp objects such as syringes. There should be clearly defined instruction as to how drug users' implements should be disposed of perhaps using local council resources. By preference volunteers should work in pairs with day-glow jackets or vests [and if appropriate safety hats]. A First Aider should be with a working group if possible or alternatively access to a known location where a First Aid is available. Especially in hot weather volunteers should have supplies of bottled water and opportunities to take breaks for a hot drink in colder weather.
On arrival at the site the team leader should prepare a list of attendees with a contactable telephone number to be used in case of illness or emergencies. Cemeteries do not normally have toilets but some thought should be given to this such as making an agreement with a nearby building such as a pub or even private dwelling as it is not fair on the volunteers to go long periods without access to these facilities.
When working regularly in cemeteries there is a risk of infection via cuts or grazing and it is suggested that a tetanus vaccination is useful but the individual should discuss this with a health professional.
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