Council defends adding yellow safety tags to graves

Nearly 40 graves were found to be unstable

A council has defended adding yellow safety tags to 37 graves in a Norfolk churchyard.

The Borough Council of King's Lynn & West Norfolk said they were added after some graves at Terrington St Clement church were deemed unstable, as first reported by The Mirror.

In 2015, an eight-year-old boy died after a headstone fell over at a cemetery in Glasgow, where the council was found not to have "an active system of inspection" in place.

The yellow tags have been criticised on social media as being "very disrespectful and insensitive".

Conservative councillor for Terrington, Paul Kunes, said the council took over the running of the graveyard at Terrington St Clement after it became full.

"No-one has contacted me personally about this, but there have been comments on social media," he said.

"But we don't want anyone killed."

Some of the headstones that had tags added to them were installed up to 30 years ago.

Councillor Paul Kunes says anyone worried about a grave should contact the council's cemeteries office

A council spokesperson said that of the 8,000 memorials it had tested across the borough so far this year, for which it has responsibility for, 900 had been deemed unsafe.

They said that headstones are owned by the family of the deceased, while councils had a responsibility to ensure they were safe, and that those that remained unstable would be laid flat.

Government guidance says "burial ground operators should have systems in place to control the risks from memorials".

Between 1979 and 2009, eight people in the UK were killed by a falling memorial.