Memorial Safety Policy

This policy has been produced to set out Oswestry Town Council’s (the council) position with regard to memorial safety, the responsibilities of the Council, its contractors, memorial masons and Deed Holders. The policy provides an overview of the actions that will be taken to minimize risk to users of the cemeteries and churchyards across the Town area.

Since Victorian times memorials have been erected at the head of graves as a permanent reminder of those buried within. It is often wrongly assumed that memorials are permanent structures, installed to the highest standards, and will last forever without need for repair.

Unfortunately, this assumption has cost the lives of six people nationally in recent years, most of whom have been children, and there have been countless accidents ranging from bruising to severe crush injuries and bone breakages. Local authorities now have to tackle years of neglect and in some cases poor workmanship. The memorials do not belong to the council; they remain the property and the responsibility of the Deed Holder to the Exclusive Rights of Burial.

Prior to any memorials being inspected, reasonable steps will be taken by the council to inform grave owners, Deed Holders or successors in title, and members of the public, of the intention to inspect memorials and reducing the risk posed by unsafe memorials.

This Will Involve:

• Giving advance formal notice in a local newspaper of any inspection regime commencing.
• Publishing details of the assessment and methodology on the council’s website.
• Giving a public demonstration on at least one occasion per year at one of the cemeteries or churchyards involved in the assessment process. This will usually be at a designated publicised open day
• Placing public notices on the cemetery gates and in prominent locations elsewhere in the cemetery affected by the assessment regime.
• Where practicable, to notify the owner, Deed Holder or successor in title.

As a condition imposed by the Church of England Faculty permission to use this type of device may only to be used when a memorial fails the hand test. The device can then be used to give an accurate reading at what calibration point the memorial failed the test.

Where memorials fail this inspection the council will attempt to contact the grave owners to inform them of the failure of their memorial.

Memorials which have been erected onto one of the concrete rafts constructed in the cemetery will undoubtedly be more secure and will only undergo ‘hand-testing on a five-year basis.