GRASS cutting in 20 churchyards across north-west Durham has not been carried out for more than a year.

Derwentside District Council, which is responsible for maintaining the cemeteries, is in dispute with the Bishop of Durham's office over dangerous headstones.

The council has identified hundreds that are in a dangerous state and wants to lay them flat to make them safe.

But the bishop's office will not grant permission to tamper with the stones unless the council promises to restore them to their former glory and agrees to maintain them on a permanent basis.

Derwentside said this would cost hundreds of thousands of pounds and has refused. The church has threatened legal action if any gravestones are moved without permission, so the council has withdrawn its workers.

Peter Reynolds, head of environmental services at Derwentside, said: "We started a programme of testing headstones and laying flat the dangerous ones.

"We got a response from the advisory committee saying this was illegal. Since then, we have not been able to get anybody in to cut the grass."

He said the council would cut pathways so that people could reach churchyard war memorials on Remembrance Sunday next month.

One of those affected is St Andrew's Church, in Stanley, where 54 men and boys are buried in unmarked graves.

They were among 168 miners killed in an explosion at the Burns Pit in February 1909, one of the region's worst mining disasters.

The Northern Echo is raising funds for a monument to mark the mass graves.

Local historian Roger Drake said: "The grass is five feet high. It is absolutely disgraceful.

"We have our sights set on putting a memorial there and we cannot take people in when it is like this. You cannot even see where the graves are any more."

Chester-le-Street Council is facing £65,000 to repair 300 unsafe gravestones and Durham City has already set aside about £10,000 a year for a rolling programme of repairs and maintenance.

Bill Heslop, secretary of the bishop's diocesan advisory committee, said: "Most councils are taking a fairly pragmatic approach and dealing with this piecemeal.

"Derwentside has taken fright and cannot see that there are easy ways through the problem."