Do you own a family grave or headstone in one of Oldham’s Cemeteries?
Please take a few moments to read this; it is aimed to help you understand why it is necessary for the Council to carry out safety inspections on family memorials to ensure a safe environment in our cemeteries to visitors and staff.
Do you know anyone who visits a cemetery or owns a memorial? If you do, please advise them to read this information.
We need to make sure that memorials are safe, especially since there have been ten serious accidents recently to members of the public in cemeteries across the country, three of which have been fatal.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) want councils to inspect memorials at least every five years, putting safe those that fail the inspection process.
Some cemeteries that have been found with high numbers of unsafe headstones have had “improvement notices” placed on them by the HSE, which can result in them being closed down until the cemetery has been made safe. Of course this affects members of the public who wish to visit friends and relatives buried in the cemetery and those who want to hold funerals during this time.
We appreciate that testing and making safe memorials may cause upset to bereaved families, but our priority has to be the safety of those people visiting cemeteries.
All Oldham’s testing inspectors have been specially trained. With each memorial they conduct what’s called a ‘hand test’ whereby, a trained member of staff stands to the side of the memorial and using his hand exerts force up to 35kg to examine if the memorial is secure or loose. The tests are run twice, with different inspectors. If both results are the same, we then classify the stability of the memorial.
There are four classifications for the stability of headstones, risk one being dangerous and risk four stable. Risks two and three indicate that there is a weakness in the memorial, but no immediate danger. If our memorial ownership records are up to date we write to the owners of those memorials classified one, two or three, telling them of the safety inspection and offering advice.
If there is a problem with the stability of the memorial we will either temporarily stabilise it, fence it off or as a last resort lay the memorial down.
By the end of 2003 all memorials in Oldham’s Cemeteries had been assessed for safety, and sadly many of the larger memorials had to be laid down. Many small memorials were initially laid down and have since been temporarily stabilised to ease the distress to those relatives involved. In cases where memorials were laid down for safety a notice has been attached to advise the owners.
Responsibility in the first instance rests with the purchaser or owner of the memorial, or the mason or the person who put the memorial up. In most instances, memorials are many years old and the purchaser / owner has either moved away or has passed on and no family member is currently maintaining it.
Masons that have erected these memorials may also have moved away or retired. A High Court ruled that a where a memorial mason had erected a tombstone properly it should stand for a least 30 years without repair. However, most of Oldham’s headstones are far older than 30 years.
Ultimately therefore the responsibility for safety within Oldham’s cemeteries has fallen on the Council as land-owner.
The records of many owners are extremely old and have not been updated by current relatives / family members. We have issued many press releases about the safety inspections and held a number of workshop demonstrations in the cemeteries to explain the whole safety inspection process. We are now actively campaigning for memorial owners or visitors to the graves to up date the current contact address so that we may keep you informed of future memorial inspections. You can contact the Central Cemeteries Office on 0161 681 1312 to update your contact details or complete the Update Contact Details Form and return it to the address stated on the form.
We understand that this may be upsetting for you, and are really sorry for any distress it may cause.
If your memorial has to be laid flat to make it safe you can choose to either:
Leave the memorial lying down; and take no further action (we may need to ‘dig in’ the memorial to remove trip hazards); or
Have the memorial repaired by a Registered Memorial Mason.
If you choose to have it repaired then please, for your own safety, do not attempt to repair or remove memorials yourself. Only Oldham Registered Memorial Masons should carry out this kind of work to make sure safety standards are complied with.
A list of Registered Memorial Masons can be obtained at the following address:
Central Cemeteries Office.
Hollinwood Cemetery,
Roman
Road,
Hollinwood,
Oldham. OL8 3LU
Tel: 0161 681 1312
Fax:
0161 683 5233
E-mail: env.cemeteries@oldham.gov.uk
Oldham has organised a ‘Cemeteries Working Party’ combined of Councillors and others to discuss all cemetery issues. One of the topics to discuss will be the restoration of our cemeteries. We have been shocked and upset by the initial memorial testing and poor safety of over 10,000 memorials and the working party are discussing various methods to restore cemetery standards.
We are also setting up a Friends of Oldham Cemeteries group with representatives from all seven cemeteries. If you would like to register your interest in this group please contact the Central Cemeteries Office at Hollinwood, 0161 681 1312.
We are continuing to implement a safety inspection of memorials on a five-year rolling programme. We do not underestimate the distress this safety action has caused to many visitors to our cemeteries and we will do all we can to ease the upset.
Soon we will be undertaking a safety inspection programme in the closed churchyards within our area. Unfortunately these churchyards are very old and there are no records of living contacts. If you are aware of or have any interest in a churchyard memorial please let us know by completing the Update Contact Details Form.
On Thursday 9th December 2004, Oldham Council’s Elected Members agreed to reinstate headstones using a mix of Council Employees and Specialist Contractors where required. This will be carried out during a five-year programme of reinstatement work and those persons with individual interest in a family headstone can contact the cemetery office to discuss when the programme will effect their family grave. The Council Members also agreed to adopt appropriate standards of workmanship from Registered Memorial Masons to ensure that all future headstones are erected to current national standards.
At the Council meeting it was also agreed that those families that had privately arranged to have a headstone (that had failed during the rapid safety inspection) reinstated by an appropriate Registered Memorial Mason to the national recommended fixing standards be reimbursed. Headstone owners will need to provide written evidence from the Memorial Mason that the headstone has been reinstated securely and send the paperwork with a letter claiming reimbursement to the Central Cemeteries Office.
If you are concerned about the safety of your memorial you can arrange for a Registered Memorial Mason to inspect your memorial for safety or ask for a safety inspection from a trained member of Cemetery Staff.
Or get in touch with the National Association of Memorial Masons (NAMM) - address:
27a Albert Street
Rugby,
Warwickshire
CV21 2SG
Tel: 01788 542264
If you are concerned about your family memorial, or even just for peace of mind, we strongly recommend insurance cover. A Registered Memorial Mason will know of a company that offers this.
Keep your contact details up to date with the cemetery office as explained earlier.
Please be aware that cemeteries are potentially dangerous places. Visitors to cemeteries should keep to footpaths, avoid touching any memorials and ensure that children are supervised at all times.
For further information on headstone testing please contact:
The Institute of Crematorium and Cemetery Management
Chief
Executive, Tim Morris, FICCM
107 Parlaunt Road,
Langley,
Slough.
Tel:
020 8989 4661
Fax: 01753 770 984
E-mail: tim.morris@iccm-uk.com