A COUNCIL is on the verge of speeding up work on its memorial safety programme after a six-year-old boy was crushed to death by a gravestone.

Reuben Powell was killed when a 5ft stone fell on him as he played with a friend at the Grove Road cemetery, Harrogate, in July.

Harrogate Borough Council launched a survey of memorials in all its major cemeteries and 200 stones were recently laid flat as a result.

Now, councillors are being asked to consider the financial implications of reducing the authority's five-year safety programme for its cemeteries and churchyards to two years.

The council is currently targeting memorials which are one to two metres high.

Structural engineers are also expected to be employed, at a cost of £288,000, to carry out a detailed survey and safety works on memorials over two metres.

Further costings could hit the £1m mark if further action, such as re-erecting the memorials, is taken