 Families have been told the stones could be laid flat |
Relatives who have family buried in a Devon cemetery have been told they have 14 days to pay to make their gravestones safe. Yellow warning notices have been placed on 200 gravestones at Torquay New Cemetery, in many cases obliterating the person's name and inscription.
Contractor, the Welters Organisation, rejects accusations that it has acted in an insensitive way.
The safety inspection programme has been commissioned by Torbay Council.
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But contractors have been accused of being over the top in their assessment of the safety risks. About 200 triangular yellow safety warning notices have been placed on gravestones and letters have been sent out to families.
The memorial to Maggie Boyle's father Peter McEntee who died aged 79 in 1991, is there.
The first she knew of the safety inspection was when she received a letter, with her father's name spelt wrong.
She said: "The letter said my father's headstone was unsafe and that I might put it right within 14 days or it would be laid flat."
When she got to the graveyard, she found a stake and a clamp fixed to the back of the headstone, and a yellow triangular warning notice stuck on the front.
"It is desecration. It looks awful across your loved one's name."
Meeting planned
The action by Torbay Council follows incidents in Liverpool and Wear Valley, where children have been killed by falling gravestones.
Keith Welters, from the Welters Organisation, said: "For many months notices have been in the cemetery with help-line numbers to explain what is taking place.
"The signs are modest. I don't understand how it can be done in a more sensitive way.
"When a stone is found to be an immediate hazard it is our obligation to make that known."
He has arranged to be at Torquay Cemetery on Monday and Wednesday to meet families face to face.
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