A COUNCIL has backtracked over plans to remove ornaments from a cemetery’s graves after complaints from residents.

Redcar and Cleveland Council upset relatives whose loved ones are buried at Eston Cemetery when it wrote to them stating no ornaments and other paraphernalia were permitted and suggested the presence of such items was “disrespecting” nearby war graves.

Council officers, who also referenced health and safety in justifying the move, later followed up with a second letter which said, following an inspection last month, that ornaments had to be removed by December 6 or they would be taken away and placed in storage.

Two petitions were raised in protest, one by Emma Jennings and another by Colette Waugh, whose mother and husband respectively are buried at Eston Cemetery, receiving nearly 600 signatures in total.

The matter was also raised at a full meeting of the council by Teesville ward Councillor Vincent Smith.

The council has now put the planned actions, which affect a specific plot, on hold with meetings due to be held with relatives later this week.

Mrs Jennings, from Grangetown and a mother-of-three, said her late mother, 74-year-old Irene Robson, died in April this year and was interred in the cemetery in May.

The 37-year-old, an accounts clerk, said: “There are a couple of vases and little ornaments within a three foot square in line with the headstone.

“With it being Christmas everyone over there has been to put a few ornaments on.

“We all speak with each other and we all tidy each other’s graves, and this is the worst timing ever.

“Everyone in that plot – it is their first Christmas this year without the relatives they have lost.”

Mrs Jennings said other plots had permission for a three foot by three foot space, including the headstone, for personal items, while some had up to six foot square of space.

She added: “The petition went mad, I did it straight away after seeing the letter and it went viral, getting shared all over on social media.

“I think they [the council] will come around to a compromise and they’ve said they’ll come to a resolution after it was put on hold.”

Asked if the local authority could have handled the matter differently, she said: “Definitely.”

Cllr Smith asked for an urgent review of the burial plot restrictions being imposed by the council and read out a statement at the council meeting from one of the residents who had been contacted.

It said: “If the desire is everyone is treated the same, how can a council allow restrictions depending on which plot our loved ones’ are resting in?

“We were not given any details before burial or notice of restrictions.

“We are all still grieving and then told we are not allowed this or that for maintenance reasons.

“Residents had been informed by letter to remove ornaments off the graves by the week commencing the 6th of December.

“Will the cabinet member concerned commit to work with the petitioners to seek a solution that is fair, compassionate and acceptable to the grieving relatives?”

Cllr Smith said there was a gap between the war graves and the cemetery section in question, which he said “was not an issue at all”.

He told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “I think they [the council] just wanted the headstone, a very small six inches or so of something in the front of the headstone and just grass in between so they could ride up and down on their mowers.

“One of the things the council has admitted is that they could make people aware before they actually have a burial of any restrictions in place.

“They get the plot, do the burial and then four to six weeks later they get the deeds telling them what they can and can’t have.

“Quite a few people have said had we known beforehand we would have gone elsewhere.”

Councillor Barry Hunt, who has the ‘clean and green’ portfolio at the council, said he had suspended any action planned and would discuss it with officers.

He told Cllr Smith: “I will do a site visit and we will have a meeting with the plot holders and yourselves to keep you involved of everything that is going on.

“Anything to do with cemeteries is sensitive and should be treated with the greatest respect.

“I will do my best to help and see what we can do.”