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Dumfries and Galloway Council’s Communities Committee meets on Thursday 3 February and will receive a report on the memorial/headstone safety project.
Our Council is responsible for keeping our 215 cemeteries safe. Following the tragic death of a child in a cemetery in Glasgow in 2015, Council’s across the country were tasked by Scottish Government to carry out inspections into the safety of memorial headstones. Over thirty of our cemeteries across the breadth of the region were identified as high risk during a survey and we began work in 2018. Work on these sites was progressing but paused in early 2020 due to Covid and other factors.
This latest report details that almost half of those 31 cemeteries have had the initial works completed, with the others due to be carried out and finalised by the end of this calendar year. To date, more than 11,000 headstones have been tested, with around 10% of those found to be requiring work, and subsequently made safe.
Signage will be erected in the cemeteries where work will be taking place, and a dedicated web page on the Council website is being set up so residents and key stakeholders such as funeral directors can see well in advance where work will be scheduled to take place. These improved measures of communication will be a vital way of informing of works as well as a tool to note progress within the cemeteries.
Communities Committee Chairman, Cllr Andy Ferguson said ahead of the meeting;
“This report that will be brought before my fellow committee members provides an excellent summary of where the project is, and more importantly, where it is heading. There’s clear deadlines and a plan of where work will take place before the end of the year to ensure that our cemeteries, that so many people visit to pay their respects to their loved ones, are safe places.”
Communities Committee Vice Chairman, Cllr John Martin continued;
“The improved communications will be a valuable asset to stakeholders and residents moving forward. The teams carrying out the work will do so in a respectful and timely manner, and I hope that visitors to our cemeteries understand the importance of this work. It is imperative we make these sites safe, and this report tells us how that will happen.”
You can see the report in full at Agenda for Communities Committee on Thursday, 3rd February, 2022, 10.30 am - Dumfries and Galloway Council (moderngov.co.uk)
