Newcastle’s council leader has responded to public anger over the “crass and insensitive” laying down of hundreds of headstones in a city cemetery before Christmas.

More than 1,300 memorials at Heaton Cemetery have been laid flat on the ground after being deemed at risk of falling.

While council bosses have said they have a legal responsibility to make sure the gravestones are not safety hazards, the decision to take the action at a busy time when many people are coming to the cemetery to pay their respects to lost loved ones provoked a backlash from bereaved relatives.

Local Lib Dem councillor Greg Stone said that there had been “a lot of pain” caused by the safety inspections and called for clarity on how they were authorised and whether any changes would be made to the checks, which are set to continue at Heaton and seven other cemeteries.

Newcastle City Council leader Nick Kemp told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that he sympathised with upset families, but that the measures were necessary to comply with safety standards and avoid the risk of death or serious injury.

In May 2015, an eight-year-old boy was killed in Glasgow by a falling headstone.

Last year, Newcastle City Council was fined £280,000 after pleading guilty to failings that led to six-year-old Ella Henderson being killed by a falling tree in her school playground in 2020.

Safety checks that began in Newcastle’s cemeteries last summer have so far identified more than 1,800 potentially hazardous memorials –  the 1,326 laid down in Heaton, and a combined 485 at Jesmond Old Cemetery and the West Road Cemetery.

Coun Stone, whose Manor Park ward covers Heaton Cemetery, said: “It is clear that this is a citywide practice and I would be interested to know who signed off on this within the council – whether it was done internally by officers or whether there has been any political oversight. Given the scale of the reaction there has been locally to this, does the Labour administration confirm that they supported this practice and have they given any thought to resisting it or making changes?

“I understand that the council needs to take safety into account, but it is the way this has been done [that has caused concern].”

He added: “To me, it seems to have been crass and insensitive. Everyone understands that there are formal risk assessments to be done. But just going in there and flattening thousands of gravestones has caused a lot of pain for people in the city.”

The remaining sites still to be inspected are All Saints Cemetery in Jesmond, Hollywood Cemetery in Gosforth, St John’s Cemetery in Elswick, Lemington Cemetery, North Gosforth Cemetery, St Andrew’s Cemetery in Jesmond and St Nicholas Cemetery in Fenham.

Coun Kemp responded: “I have a lot of empathy with those who have raised concerns around the city council inspection programme and understand how difficult this has been for families affected. I too would be saddened if the headstone of one of my loved ones had been laid down, but I know that those responsible for the inspections do so with the greatest of respect and sensitivity.

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The Northern Echo:

“As Coun Stone alludes to, there have been cases in this country where insecure headstones have led to fatalities, including that of an eight-year-old boy in 2015 who tragically died after a headstone fell onto him. Councils now have statutory responsibilities to ensure headstones are stable and, if such a fatality were to happen in one of our city’s cemeteries, there would rightly be questions around why we had not abided by that legislation.

“Details of the inspection programme were widely publicised in the media and on the council website and social media pages in June, with notices also erected in cemeteries across the city in advance of any inspections taking place.

“I have also been assured that, when details are available to council officers, efforts have been made to contact loved ones when a headstone is required to be laid down. Work was also paused over the festive period, having begun in the summer.

“The safety of the public, and our council workers who maintain and upkeep our cemeteries, is of the utmost importance and it is not the role of cabinet to prevent council officers from fulfilling their statutory duties.”